A Kind of Polymer
by DSPhony
Summary: Anna thought she'd left the past behind her, but Remy and Adine don't seem to be keen on letting her forget. Oh well, how hard can raising your illegally created genetic experiments be? Pretty hard, as it turns out.
1. Chapter 1

Anna glanced again at the court order clutched in her hands, to make sure she hadn't been hallucinating for the past few hours. No, it was still there, and it still told her that she needed to come to this government building and meet someone. How was it that the humans had millions of abandoned buildings just lying around and yet the city council still ended up having them meet in the worst one?

The hallway reminded her of the one outside her old lab only in that it was lined with doors on one side and windows on the other and was, for tax purposes, an enclosed space. The carpet underfoot was a hideous shade of brown and her claws kept getting stuck in it, while the slightly-yellowed stuccoed ceiling actually managed to turn her stomach a bit. Looking for the right room number was actually something of a relief, because at least the walls were safe to look at.

There it was, Meeting Room 34B. The door was locked, of course. She checked the order again-it never hurt to be sure, so as to not give the pigs another chance to put her away-and rapped on the door with the tops of her claws. Thumping footsteps came from inside, in the rapid cadence of a ground-dwelling dragon. A pretty heavy one, judging by the volume. There was a clattering from inside the door as the occupant struggled with the knob, then a pause. After standing there for a good fifteen seconds, the door slowly swung open, revealing a white dragon beyond. He had left behind the traditional tie and was now wearing what appeared to be the detached collar of a "polo shirt".

"Remy!" she exclaimed, taking a step back. To her chagrin, her toe-claws lifted up off the ground in an unintended display of aggression.

"Anna…" Remy's reaction, by contrast, was most comparable to just being reminded of a chore you had forgotten to take care of. "I should have known it would be you."

She held up the paper in her hand, annoyed. "This isn't some plot, I was told to come here."

He blushed, and held up his own order. It was printed with noticeably fewer bolded sections about 'FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW' and 'PUNITIVE ACTION', but the gist was the same. "I was too."

Anna glanced past him-no easy feat considering his bulk- and looked into the meeting room. The place was much cleaner and tolerable for the eyes than the hallway. There was very little furniture, though, just a few plastic chairs and a folding table between them. Incongruously, a brand-new coffeemaker sat on the counter to one side of the room, and appeared to be in the middle of filling up another mug.

She smirked for a moment. "I see you made yourself at home. Do you want me to stand out here, or is it okay if I actually use one of those chairs?"

Remy sighed, and stepped aside. After she had come in and closed the door behind her, he moved back over to the coffeemaker and kept watching it impatiently. His tail was twitching like hers did after a night of caffeine-fueled experimentation. Either he had been here all night and the coffee was the only thing holding him up, or he was just as nervous about this as her.

"What are you afraid of? Government buildings are your natural habitat." Anna asked, and he glared at her with bloodshot eyes. "I'm just saying, you should be comfortable in a room like this, it's where you work."

"I was horrible at my old job and everyone was happy when I quit."

Anna resisted the urge to tell Remy exactly what she thought about that, and decided to make an attempt at defusing the situation instead. It wouldn't look good if they ended up at each other's throats before the council stooge had even gotten here. "You quit? What do you do for work now?"

"I've been taking lessons from some of the traders in town. Cutting a deal with the barbarians requires a lot of brains and very little manual dexterity, as it turns out." To Anna's surprise, he actually appeared quite happy about having zero functional hands. "I assume you're still doing unethical biological experiments."

Her claws were twitching again. "I don't need criticism from you, I've gotten quite enough already." She thudded down in one of the chairs, leaning forward so her tail could stick through between the backrest and seat. Remy mumbled something inaudibly and went back to watching the coffee drip. The door swung open suddenly, and they both glanced towards it at the same time to see who was there.

"Oh, hi Adine!" said Remy.

"Oh lord, Adine." moaned Anna.

The wyvern looked up from her clipboard and her expression changed from "peppy and ready to aid negotiations" to "should have stayed home this morning". She checked the clipboard in her hand again, incredulous, then made a beeline for the chair opposite Anna, still silent. When she sat down, Adine took a deep breath and set the clipboard down on the table with enough force to make Remy jump.

"Hey Remy… Anna. I assume you both know why you're here."

Anna had never heard someone trying so hard to keep their voice neutral. "Actually, I have no clue why I'm here. This form letter says 'find details on back' but there's nothing printed on the back." Anna flipped the paper back and forth in front of Adine's face, and her eyes moved to track it involuntarily. Her face was getting redder by the second, and Anna smirked.

Remy glared at her, moving over to the table and pushing a chair aside to stand next to it. "I didn't have a back on my letter either, actually."

Adine snatched the paper out of Anna's hand and looked at it, her blush gradually draining away and leaving her pale in the face. "Did I really forget to… oh no ." She began looking through the half-inch of documents in her clipboard frantically, ignoring the actual contents in order to find the right forms. Right on the bottom of the stack, there were two extra copies, descriptions of the reason for the summons and a form-fillable section for excusing one's absence. "Augh, Janice is gonna kill me... " She grabbed the two extra forms from the stack and handed one to each of them. "These were supposed to print… double sided."

Anna accepted hers with a smirk that immediately vanished when she saw the actual seal on the document. "Department of Child Services?" She gestured at the paper, annoyed. "Last time I checked, I don't have any kids."

There was a long pause, during which Adine made a low noise in her throat, approaching a growl.

Before the situation escalated into an all-out brawl, Remy cleared his throat. "It might be a good idea to, er, read the whole thing before making any judgements." he stammered.

Anna frowned slightly more as she read further down on the paper, which ended up in an open-mouth snarl. "No way! I'm not taking care of some damn ward of the state. I can barely pay rent!" She shut her mouth suddenly, shrinking back into her chair in embarrassment.

Remy raised an eye-ridge. "Well, I have no troubles with money, but there doesn't seem to be a reason for her to be involved, in any case."

Anna rolled her eyes but still nodded in agreement.

"Whether or not you two are… qualified," Adine was definitely working from a rehearsal, because she looked pretty disgusted at what she was saying despite her neutral tone, "is of no consequence. There are apparently some 'special circumstances' in this case." The two parents frowned as she began to leaf through her ream again. " I can't believe they want us to memorize all of this. " she murmured, finally getting to the List of Special Considerations form. "It says here… nope, no way!" Adine stood up very suddenly, rustling the papers and sending a few pens off the table as her wings unfurled a bit.

Remy cocked his head. "What's the matter?"

The wyvern took her head in her hands for a moment before looking back to the list. "Urghh, I'll just read it to you: 'The council finds that in this extraordinary circumstance, both Remy yn Rhyfedd and Anna Forásach are to be considered the biological parents of Amely no-last-name, on the basis of the genetic test and witness testimony. As such, there is no legal option other than returning the child to their custody, unless one or the other demonstrates unfitness of the task.'." Adine said, looking nauseated.

It took the two of them a moment to process this information, and then they both began shouting at her.

"I was pardoned!"

"What!? You're letting her take custody-"

"I never even met-"

'-after what she did to-"

"-his daughter!"

"-my wife!"

Adine wiped a few flecks of spittle off of her face, looking very much like she wished she had stayed home not just this morning but for the past few months. "That's the rule, unfortunately. Unless one of you was already proven to be negligent and," she cleared her throat, "not pardoned, you are apparently considered Amely's parents, with all the responsibilities that implies."

Anna gritted her teeth for a moment, then let out a low sigh. Wasn't it enough for that mistake to ruin her life on one world? "Can I renounce my claim, or however it's said?"

Adine looked relieved, and found the needed form a lot quicker in her stack than the others. "I printed this out especially for you, would you believe it?" She smirked as she handed Anna the clipboard with the paper on top. The runner quickly set to work filling in her information, but Remy looked concerned.

"And if she fills that out, I get full custody, right?"

Adine wrinkled her mouth, thinking. "As long as you can demonstrate ability to take care of Amely alone, sure. You said you don't have money troubles, so that's good…" She jotted down a few notes on the margin of one of the innumerable documents. "What's your home life like? Do you have the time to take care of a child alone?"

Remy lost a little of the remaining color in his face. "I… do have to go on trips for work sometimes. A few days usually." His voice became a little softer. "Or weeks."

Adine grimaced, sucking in a breath. "That might be a problem. I know it's a raw deal, but I can't in good conscience let you take her if someone can't at very least be there when she's home from school."

Confused, Anna looked up. "She's in school now? Last time I saw her she knew at most three words."

"Preschool, sure. She started last week." Adine looked honestly happy for the first time since she'd walked in, and Anna rolled her eyes.

Remy scratched his chin with a foreclaw, making a staccato series of clicks against his scales. "I'll have to find a different job, I guess. This one was working out pretty well but…" he shrugged.

Adine nodded in commiseration, but then a sly smile began to spread across her face. "Well, if you don't have a steady income, the other parent would be partially responsible for the well being of the child."

Anna looked up very suddenly from the nearly completed release form. "What kind of responsibility?"

"Well, that's up to the council in the end. It's pretty much always a child support payment, though, but that won't be any trouble for you, I'm sure." Adine was grinning like a fox, and Anna felt a flash of deja vu. Did she really look like that when she was scheming? "There's absolutely no chance of you ending up in a courtroom again with your record re-opened, yep."

Her claws suddenly a bit shaky, Anna very carefully set the pen down before signing the final line. "I get the point, alright. What do you want me to do?"

Adine nodded to Remy, and he hummed contemplatively for a moment. "Well, I don't really need the money, it's more that I need someone…" he gestured broadly with a forelimb, "... around to make sure Amely is taken care of."

The others gaped at him, though Anna at least had the presence of mind to keep schtum for now.

"You're not suggesting that Anna move into your house and help you take care of the child which, may I remind you , she made out of your dead wife!" Adine had her wings on the table, leaning forward towards Remy.

He grimaced at the mention of Amelia but none of that anger crept into his voice. "I don't suppose you'd be able to do it, then."

Adine started. "I guess not, no."

"And hiring a nanny for a long term-especially in the outer city-would put me in the poorhouse just as much as getting a new job," Remy said, with a hint of frustration. "If I want to see my child more than a few times a month there's really no other choice."

Adine threw up her wings in frustration, sending the loose debris in the room flying about. "But she's a-a monster, a criminal, a heretic!"

"She also helped us save all dragonkind, if you recall!" Remy was actually getting a bit heated, at last. "We've both changed since Amelia died, Adine! What makes her any different?"

"You really want to play that card? All you wanted to do after that was-"

Anna cut them both off with a shout. "For fuck's sake, I'll do it if it makes you both shut up!"

A beat passed. Adine blinked at her. "Really?"

"Beats being thrown in prison," Anna replied. "And I'm not going to turn down a chance to get out of my current 'accommodations', even if it means living in Remy's house."

"Well, live in my house and take care of Amely when I'm gone, yeah." He cast his eyes to the ceiling, trying to recall. "I think there's a spare room you can have."

"To be clear, I still hate this idea, but I'll-"

Adine cut her off."You'd better not hate it. My ,er, colleagues and I will be checking in to make sure that Amely is well taken care of."

Anna held up her hands in a warding gesture and leaned away from Adine. "I'll do my best, then. At least until Remy can get a better job."

"That's all I can legally ask for." Adine flipped through the papers one more time and took out a schedule. "Amely will be leaving state custody in one week. If Anna isn't moved in by then there's a real chance that it stands to become a criminal matter, and Amely will stay with us for the foreseeable future."

Remy's expression changed slightly, from righteous fury to anxiety.

"We'll be dropping her off at your home of record, where the summons were delivered."

"That's fine, yes." he replied carefully.

"Alright. Officially, you should already have presented proof of financial responsibility, but since you didn't know you needed it I can pick it up next week. Just a pay stub or account statement should do fine." Remy nodded, and Adine suddenly dropped her formal tone. "Well at least that's... squared away. Alex wanted to know if we were still doing brunch on Sunday." Anna tensed at the mention of the human, but Remy nodded happily, despite their argument.

"I wouldn't dream of missing it."

"Great, see you then." She stood up, nodding to Anna. "And I'll see you next week, hopefully." Adine handed each of them a schedule and took her clipboard. As she walked out of the room, her nervous muttering about Janice's swift punishment was barely audible. The door closed behind her and the room was suddenly very quiet. The drip of the coffee machine had stopped

Remy moved away from the table and poured himself a cup of coffee, adding at least twice as much creamer as Anna thought was necessary. He looked over his shoulder at Anna, who was still seated at the table, staring murderously at the schedule. "Want some?"

"I'll get it myself, thanks."

When she didn't move, he tried to keep pushing the conversation forward. "So, should I help you move out? Big Mitch has a spare transport truck that I can probably get off him for a few favors."

"A truck might be a bit excessive. There's probably more floor space in it than my apartment," Anna replied, with a sour laugh. "Just drive over in a car, I can fit my mattress in the trunk and carry everything else."

Remy appeared conflicted, sucking in one corner of his mouth as he formed his reply. "Alright, I can do that." he said, leaving an unasked question in the air.

Anna furrowed her brow. "What did you want to ask me?"

Remy blushed, though he sounded more evasive than embarrassed. "Nothing, nothing. Just… fell on hard times, huh?" He took another gulp of his coffee, trying to stay very intently focused on the ceiling.

"Hard times fell on me. As it turns out, there are very few jobs for traditional Doctors of Pharmacy in a world with medical nanorobotics." Any sense of wonder at the humans advancements Anna might have felt had long ago been snuffed out, replaced with annoyance and a deep mistrust.

"Alex must have set you up with a stipend like everyone else, though."

"Yes, which is the only reason I'm not saddled with three hundred thousand dollars of crippling medical debt," Anna said, scratching at the patch of still-regrowing scales on her neck.

"Ouch."

She stood up and walked past him to the coffee maker, pouring a cup for herself and gulping it down with no amendments.

Remy grimaced in sympathy for her taste buds. "I guess I'll pay your half of the rent, then." He grinned.

Shooting him a withering stare, Anna gulped down the rest of the coffee. "I'll see you on Saturday." Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed her schedule and walked out of the room.

The door closed firmly behind her, leaving Remy alone. "I'll, uh, see you too." He sighed, and looked back to the schedule, taking a nervous gulp of coffee. He couldn't help but grin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes:** I finished this chapter last Sunday, but it got caught in editing hell. It might never have seen the light of day if not for my betas, Reaver(though he mainly helped with Chapter 1), Panoramic_Vacuum, and Lord-Ovidiu. Mad props to all three of them! Also, I'd like to make something clear: I'm always looking for constructive criticism and feedback on my work, both completed and uncompleted. Every bit of concrit I get helps me to improve as a writer, and create better stories for you.

* * *

The apartment door creaked open three days later, and Anna stumbled through, exhausted. She turned around and took a moment to close the door, since her tail couldn't get clear if she closed it on the way in. Once the deadbolt was secure, she shrugged off her coffee-stained apron and hung her wallet on a coat hook, then curled up on the mattress next to it. Today had been utterly exhausting, like every day at her new job. It hadn't helped that some wannabe Alex had decided to ask for her number for the third time this week. At least the management was willing to throw those idiots out when they noticed them.

After a few blessed moments of rest, she got up again and walked into the bathroom. There was a small container of pills next to the sink, and she gulped one down dry. The slightly tingly sensation of the nanites picking at her tissues had stopped being irritating after a while. The "Take with food" instruction on the bottle reminded her stomach of its job, and she nearly doubled over as it decided to make its demands clear via a hunger cramp. The apartment didn't have a kitchen-it barely had a bedroom-but there was a cooktop built into the table that was mounted on one wall and a sink in the bathroom which was deep enough to fill pots and wash dishes. She filled a small saucepan with water and set it on the stove to boil, then took a moment to survey the space. It had just occurred to her that this would be her last day here. Couldn't be soon enough.

The apartment was pre-collapse construction and was very much a product of its time. The walls were covered in panels of polycarbonate that apparently reduced noise and self-cleaned, but totally failed to hold heat in or out. A few of the panels were indented or extruded to form the table, a pair of cabinets, and a few seats. This meant that she didn't own any furniture in the apartment except the mattress, which limited her options for moving out without outside help and, more importantly, meant the landlord could upcharge her even more.

The pot nearly boiled over before she managed to draw her focus back to it, cursing under her breath and quickly giving it a stir with a nearby wooden spoon. Now that the water was roiling, Anna opened the cabinet and grabbed a plastic wrapper of dehydrated noodles, pulling it open and dumping the noodle brick into the boiling water. A few drops splashed on her scales, but she didn't notice. In exactly five minutes, she had a bowl of noodles in front of her and slightly less self-esteem. Foregoing the flavor packet, Anna choked the noodles down and tried not to think about Remy's brunch tomorrow.

Leaving the dish on the table- she rationalized that it barely had anything on it beyond noodle residue-Anna took a few steps towards her bed, then blinked, confused, and patted herself down. Where was her tablet? After glancing around frantically she sighed, pressed her claw against her face for a moment, then picked up her apron and pulled the sliver of glass and metal out of the front pocket. These tablets weren't as cheap as the rest of her lifestyle, but you needed one to do practically anything in this city, and the fact that it provided a brief respite from reality was nice too.

Anna curled up on her bed, pulling up one of the medical databases she'd been reading through in an effort to get back up to speed. It wasn't light reading, and the words seemed to be even less cooperative than usual. What kind of scientist would she be, though, if she couldn't even understand the basics of human medicine? Out of spite more than anything, she pressed on, only stopping when she reread the same paragraph at least a dozen times without processing any of it. With a yawn, she set the tablet aside and pulled up the blanket over herself. Unconsciousness swept over her quickly.

* * *

The next thing she heard was someone quietly rapping at her door. Anna pried herself up off the mattress, carefully pulling out one of her toe-claws that had become embedded in it overnight. She yawned and tapped her tablet awake to check the time. It was six in the morning. She muttered a few curses and walked over to the door, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Who could possibly be at her door at this creator-forsaken hour?

The peephole was too awkward to reach, so she settled for bracing herself against the door and pulling it open a bit to peer outside. "Who let you in? What do you want?" she asked, before looking out.

"I'm pretty sure I was invited," said Remy. He was waiting in the hallway, wearing his old tie and collar combination. He looked almost as excited as she felt tired. There was a small cart next to him with a few plastic grocery bags on it. The doorman must have lent him one of the carts he used to shift groceries for the upper-class residents, thirty stories above her. How thoughtful of him. "You want some help getting packed?"

Anna blinked and shook her head, trying to stay focused. "Can you get the mattress? I can pack up the rest, at least after a cup of coffee." She opened the door the rest of the way, allowing Remy to enter.

Before he walked in, Remy fished around in one of the bags and pulled out a paper cup of coffee, still hot. "I came prepared," he said, handing Anna the cup.

She grabbed it and sucked down the coffee greedily, ignoring the heat. The caffeine would take a moment to hit her brain, but in the meantime she mumbled a thanks to Remy and moved away from the door to let him in.

He followed, taking a look around, lingering on the dishes and various clothing items scattered about. His upper lip curled slightly, but he said nothing and moved over to the bed, peeling off the blanket and fitted sheet and grabbing one of the handles on the mattress in his mouth.

While Remy struggled to move the mattress, she began to "pack". She snatched the blanket and sheet and spread them out on the floor, setting out her few personal items: toiletries, a couple old pairs of goggles, her medicine. She moved to go grab the dishes on the table and Remy spat out the handle.

"You don't need those, I have dishes at my house. Clean ones." There was a note of pity in his voice, but neither of them felt like further expounding on it. He grabbed the handle again and kept pulling.

Anna didn't have a suitcase, but she also didn't have any clothes, so it had seemed like a pretty pointless way to spend three days' pay. As a substitute, she wrapped her stuff up in the blanket, tucking in the ends to form a neat little bundle. Well, it was actually pretty big and unwieldy, and she had to be quite gentle with her claws while holding it. Once she'd found a reasonable way to hold it, she grabbed her wallet off the coat hook and hung it around her neck again before heading out the door.

Remy had wrestled the mattress onto the cart. It was far too large to fit, really, and the ends were just barely off the ground. He glanced sidelong at her "luggage". "That's all you have?" he asked, a note of worry in his voice.

"Other than the apron, yes." She had considered taking it with her, but it wasn't exactly stylish or of any value with all the stains, and her scales were just as good at taking heat as the cloth anyway. Maybe the maintenance man would find a better use for it, when he came by to clean up the room later today. These apartment complexes were notoriously fast at refurbishing rooms after their tenants left.

"Fair." Remy shrugged, looking towards the elevators. He seemed pretty excited about the whole thing. Anna was surprised to find she wasn't dreading moving out either, though probably for very different reasons than him. Then again, maybe it was just the coffee talking. She hadn't had a fresh brew in weeks. "Well, if you're ready to go, let's get this stuff down to the car!"

* * *

Anna had had a hard time grasping the idea of a car at first, when she'd seen the files on them in one of the donated PDAs. Sure, it'd probably be useful in some of the bigger cities, and it might be nice to get out of paying for train or riverboat tickets to visit relatives-not that she ever did, but it was on her mind from time to time-but there was no point in taking them everywhere, surely. If she had done the math at the time, instead of a few weeks later during an extremely boring session of nanotherapy, Anna would have been able to make use of the realization that a car would have cut her commute to work down from a solid half-hour to five minutes at most. Of course, like everything humans created there was some stupid sting in the tail, which in this case was traffic.

She tapped her claws against the window next to her, jealously watching the pedestrians walk by on the sidewalk outside. A line of cars and trucks stretched forward in front of them, disappearing into the dark recesses of the inner wall and, at some point, passing through to come out on the other side. There was a constant din of idling engines, PA announcements, and the grinding of heavy machinery. The whole thing was giving her a headache.

They were practically crawling forward, which she thought must have been particularly disappointing for Remy because his car was a _whip_ as far as she could tell. Low to the ground, aerodynamic lines, and all-electric drivetrain-you could afford a lot when you had it so easy. Trunk space was pretty limited, though. Having to fit into the front seat with her impromptu baggage bundle almost made Anna regret not asking for Mitch's truck.

"Is your commute always this slow?" she asked, looking away from the window at Remy. Unlike her slightly modified seat, his seat was basically a small bench or bed, which stretched into the rear of the car to give adequate space. A harness around the chest and shoulders was the only thing holding him in place in the event of a crash. He was gripping the wheel awkwardly with his foreclaws, but as far as she could tell the car was in automatic mode-that is, driving itself to the destination.

"I don't commute through the inner wall on a daily basis, but whenever I do have to go through it's always an ordeal." He sighed. "I've tried giving the guards some advice-work in batches rather than a single car, only do one lane at a time, etcetera, but they don't care. Most of them live in the wall barracks anyway, so it's not like they have to deal with their own work ethic." The car's interior was suddenly plunged into shadow as they passed into the gatehouse. The only illumination was the sodium-vapor lighting set up in strips along the walls and ceiling.

Eventually, they came to a stop in front of a massive steel security door. After a moment, a few warning lights activated and the door slowly lifted into the roof of the tunnel, only about a third of the way, leaving a ten-foot tall gap for them to pass through. Once inside, they pulled in as far as they could, stopping at another closed security door. This room was much brighter than outside, lit by several sets of spotlights shining down on the two lanes of traffic. Anna shivered as she saw the glint of gun barrels just outside the well-lit area, and the rifles the guards carried by shoulder straps.

The door shut behind them and the other cars that had pulled in, and the guards began to move out and inspect the vehicles. A human and a drake broke off towards them.

"You've got your ID, right?" Remy asked.

Anna started before taking a stealthy look into her wallet. The one cup of coffee had already pretty much filtered through her caffeine-tolerant body, and now the cards and coins inside the wallet were starting to get a bit distorted by her sleep-addled mind.

The drake stood a few feet away while the human moved in towards the driver's side window, tapping on the glass from the outside with a gloved hand. Anna was still trying to find her ID as Remy rolled down the window and gave the human his ID. "This your first time outside the wall?" asked the human.

"No sir, I'm actually driving home right now."

"Well, this looks to be in order." The guard handed back Remy's card. "I'll need to see some identification for your passenger, though."

"Got it," said Anna, finally looking up with her own card in hand.

A look of recognition flashed across the human's face, but he maintained a military air as he took the ID from her. As he read it, his eyes widened. "You're free to go, but," he leaned in a little closer, "Are you two the _real_ Remy yn Rhyfedd and Anna Forásach?" The guard's tone had suddenly shifted to childlike glee.

"Um… yes?" replied Remy, confused.

"Oh my gods, I never thought I'd meet one of you in person, let alone two! What was it like-"

"Dan!" shouted the drake, glaring at his partner,"We're on a schedule!"

The guard flushed slightly and fumbled to give the card back to Anna. "Have a great day!" he said, reluctantly moving on to the next car in line. He glanced back as he walked, but said nothing. Remy rolled up the window and shot Anna an apologetic look.

"Does that happen every time?" she replied, stuffing the card back into her wallet.

Remy shrugged. "Eh, every third time through or so. It's nearly always the humans, of course."

"And you don't mind?" Anna had gotten her fair share of attention from the humans at the cafe where she worked, but none of it was from people who had actually recognized her. It was probably fair game, considering that half her customers worked at a massage parlor next door that specialized in "attending to the needs" of female dragons, and they, she imagined, got their fair share of unwanted attention.

"Hey, at least he didn't ask for our autographs," Remy replied.

Anna laughed despite herself. "We would have been here all day, waiting for you to finish writing it without dropping the pen."

Remy seemed not to hear what she said, and looked ahead again. The guards had gotten to the last car on their side, and now retreated into the dimly-lit side spaces of the wall. With another flash of warning lights, the outer security door slid open and they silently cruised out, passing the row of cars heading in from the other side. The road sloped steeply downward and they curved left, then back right. A wash of sunlight blinded her for a moment, and then they were in the outer city.

The inner city had never much impressed Anna-it was basically the city she'd attended college in but with taller buildings. The outer city was something entirely new, though. The road they were on curved down the hill that the inner city was positioned on, giving her a wyvern's-eye view of the area. Dwarfish buildings sprawled away from them as far as the eye could see, none more than four stories and very close-packed. The only breaks in the concrete sea were a massive tower far in the distance that had some complicated apparatus atop it, and a river that cut through the area, looping around the city and out of her sight. There was a surprising amount of greenery, though, mostly in large patches of buildings that were slowly being pulled back into the earth by vines and saplings. As they moved down into the streets, she could see that the storefronts around them were moldering away as well, other than a few that had apparently received a fresh coat of paint and new windows.

"This doesn't seem like a very hospitable environment to raise a child," Anna observed.

Remy considered his surroundings before answering. "This part of town isn't, yeah. If you have the cash to fix a place up, though, there's no better place to spend it than the outer city." As he spoke, they turned onto a much smoother street, with actual streetlamps. There were no more storefronts, but rather quite quaint-looking duplexes. A few blocks ahead stood an imposing wrought-iron gate, which Remy drove right up to. It slid aside, allowing them to pass into an even ritzier part of town. The houses here had actual lawns, and any ivy growing up their walls appeared to have been deliberately planted there.

A few turns later, they were in the driveway of a two-story home built in a relentlessly modern style, all sheer walls and cantilevers. Remy pulled the car into the first garage Anna had seen in person and they came to a stop. They both sat there for a moment, neither knowing the polite way to proceed, until he broke the tension. "I'll help you unpack, just a sec," he said, opening the driver's door and snaking out of it awkwardly.

She wordlessly got out on her side and adjusted the bundle in her arms as she moved around to the trunk. Remy opened it with a press of the key-fob tied around his wrist and the mattress inside flopped back to its full size, nearly clotheslining Anna. After glancing at her, he reared back and tried to grab the end to pull it out of the car. She raised a hand to save some time by doing it herself and he shook his head. "I-ah-got it! Just gotta-oop-adjust my-eh-footing." he said, rearing back even further until he was nearly standing upright. Panic flashed in his eyes as he lost his balance and unceremoniously flopped onto his back.

Anna had to suppress a chuckle, though the mild frustration she felt made this easier. "I'll do it myself, thanks."

Remy rolled back onto his belly, red-faced. "Yes, um, maybe I should just show you around the house first, get you familiar with where you're going to be… living." There was a note of disbelief in the last word.

"I won't object," she replied, shifting the bundle back into both hands.

He stood, flapping his wings to dislodge the floor-dirt on them, and lead her out of the garage. The interior of the house was just as modern and slightly-pretentious as the exterior, with only a few distinct rooms apart from a large central space for "entertaining". When pressed on if he actually threw any parties, Remy admitted that he hadn't ever actually had more than three or four people over to his house at a time. Her host's oddities aside, Anna was still quite curious about the accommodations for herself.

"Huh, nice color," she remarked, upon walking into the spare room. It was quite cramped, though still larger than the whole of her apartment, and had a single row of windows mounted high on the wall that managed to give off a perfect mix of "federal prison cell" and "middle school classroom" vibes. There was an empty bedframe in the corner of the room with a small nightstand next to it, and no other furniture. However, the color was, as a point of fact, a shade of ecru that was objectively quite nice.

"I picked it myself, when I had the place repainted," Remy said proudly.

Anna nodded, shifting slightly from foot to foot. A question had come to mind, but it would be very rude to ask. She settled for mumbling it just low enough that Remy wouldn't understand.

"Come again?"

Hah, she wasn't the initiator anymore. "Is this it?" Anna asked, at full volume.

"Yes, this is in fact _it_ ," Remy said, annoyed. "I said it was a spare room, didn't I?"

Anna tossed her bundle in the corner and it clunked as the items inside shifted. "I don't even get a chair, though? This was supposed to be the _better_ alternative to prison."

"There's a few miles of couches in the main room, if you need a place to sit. Furniture is expensive and I had to call in all the favors I could muster just to get Amely's room in order."

"If this is how you treat all your guests, I understand why you don't get much use out of that big party room."

Remy had another inexplicable outburst of deafness, and again didn't react to her comment as they walked out of the room. They only moved a short distance, to the next door down, then cut back in. The next room was decorated… well, "decorated" was perhaps too generous a term. It had been _defaced_ with a can of pink paint and various vinyl wall stickers of flowers and small pastel mouflons. There actually was a fair bit of furniture in this room, namely a child-sized bedroom set that mercifully was pretty neutral in hue. Anna was beginning to get extremely tired of being nauseated by interior design.

"This must be Amely's room, then," Anna deadpanned.

Remy grinned. "It's great, right? I can't wait for her to see it."

"It's very… pink, yes." Anna walked into the room, inspecting it more carefully. What was the big dresser for? Neither of them wore more than basic accessories. Checking inside the drawers only increased her confusion-they were all empty except for one, which held a few allen wrenches and a couple of framed photographs that had been left face-down.

Remy cleared his throat and she set the picture she'd been inspecting down without seeing the front. "I didn't actually ask for the dresser, but it came with the set."

Anna closed the drawer and took another look around. Remy finally noticed the look on her face.

"Do you have a problem with this room, too?" His pride had diminished somewhat, but not gone by any metric.

"My bedroom when I was a kid didn't look like this." For one thing, it had been significantly less pink, and there had been a bookshelf instead of a dresser. She still loved that bookshelf, even though she hadn't seen it in decades.

"Amely isn't you."

"That's an entirely true statement." Anna nodded patronizingly. "I hope her favorite color turns out to be pink, though."

Remy opened his mouth and narrowed his eyes to respond, but before he could speak his phone rang. He didn't bother trying to take it out, instead just listening through the earpiece that was somewhat awkwardly fitted into his left ear. As he talked, he began to move into the main room and Anna followed him. "Yes, I'll still be able to make it… Uh-huh, she saw the room… Yeah… okay, I'll see you soon. Bye."

Anna had been glaring at him for some time from between heavy eyelids. "Important call?" She asked.

Remy blushed slightly. "Hate to cut the tour off short, but I totally forgot about my brunch date today. Um…" He glanced around, anxious. "I'll be back in three or four hours, so just, er, make yourself comfortable here in the meantime." He gave an awkward wave as he made for the door to the garage.

Anna waved back halfheartedly. Well, it was probably for the best that he had left. It might have been the caffeine high wearing off, but she was exhausted. That always seemed to happen when she spent too much time in Remy's proximity. Right now, she just wanted to curl up and… oh for pete's sake. Her mattress was still in the trunk, wasn't it? She groaned, and it echoed through the empty house. How absolutely typical.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes:** Four days early for a biweekly release or three days late for a weekly release? I'll never tell (but if you ask this chapter's beta Panoramic_Vacuum they might say). As always, I'm looking for constructive criticism and feedback on my work, both completed and uncompleted. Every bit of concrit I get helps me to improve as a writer, and create better stories for you.

* * *

Anna squinted at the tiny lines of text on the tablet's screen. The process by which a hydrophobic signaling compound is embedded into a nanomachine's diamondoid structure is relatively simple, however when the compound is hydrophilic a designer must -she blinked, her frills twitching at a sharp sound.

Remy was halfway off the couch and tapping his claws on the floor impatiently. The TV murmured in the background, adding a bassline to the clicking sound. The result was less than melodic.

She grumbled and shook her head. - vary the polarity of the surface at certain key points, as a wholly hydrophilic outer shell would lead to the device becoming bogged down in the blood plasma. Most modern nanoCAD software includes options for creating these patches, as detailed in - The couch creaked as Remy got off of it entirely and began to pace. The clicking got louder and, if it was possible, more distracting. Anna groaned and set her tablet aside.

"Could you stop pacing? I'm trying to read." Her tone brooked no argument.

Remy kept pacing but looked at her. His pupils were narrowed to slits. "Do you think I got the pillows fluffed enough? Wait, what about the dusting the top of the track lights!" He looked up at the steel-framed light array some twenty feet above them.

"She's not going to look at the top of the track lights." Anna powered off her tablet entirely; there was no way she'd be getting back to it soon at this rate.

Remy shook his head. "Maybe, but what about something else? Did you make sure your room was organized?"

Anna grimaced. "Yes, I did. Can you stop freaking out? It's distracting."

"Can you start?" He was actually yelling, and her toe-claws raised in response to the 'threat'. "If I screw this up, I'll never be able to-argh!" Remy stubbed his toe on the coffee table and a remote clattered to the floor. Hearing the sound, he blushed and grabbed it quickly, putting it back onto the coffee table and carefully adjusting it to line up with the others.

"If you wanted to get rid of everything Adine is gonna find wrong in your house, you could always start with me." Her tone was calm but carried unfathomable loads of smugness. She found it ideal for getting people riled up.

"You can be needlessly antagonistic later, Anna. She's going to be here any second!" His toe-pain had at least stopped him from pacing for the moment, though he was still glancing around like a cornered animal.

"Better change the channel, then." She gestured at the TV wryly "That show isn't exactly family viewing material." Remy hadn't been much for television before coming here, but apparently humans had a talent for making good television. Anna didn't see it-as far as she could tell this show was mainly intended as a vector for graphic violence and romantic tension between the leads. Oh, and at least three or four sex scenes a season. How droll.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Remy lunged for the remote and turned the TV off, sprawling across the coffee table. The bell rang again, and he clambered off of the table and walked over to the door, making sure to grab the paperwork off of the end table at the far end of the couch they'd been on. Anna sighed and stood up as well, making her own way over. Remy worked the lever with his free claw and pushed it open.

Despite herself, Anna felt something in her chest tense when she saw Adine and Amely standing outside the door, hand in hand. It was mostly annoyance, though.

"Hey, Remy." Adine looked down to her charge, whose tail was actually wagging slightly with excitement. "Amely, you remember Remy, right?"

"Yeah, I've met him lots of times!" Amely replied, sounding a little offended. "Does Mister Remy remember me, though?"

Adine and Remy both laughed. "How could I forget you?" he asked. He suddenly sounded on the verge of tears. Then again, Remy was the type to get worked up about silly things. After a short pause, he continued. "Please come in; I can't imagine the stoop is too comfortable."

The two of them walked in, and Amely looked around, awed. "This is a really big house, Mister Remy."

"Well, I don't know about really big." He leaned down, closer to her, and confided, "I only got lost two or three times when I moved in."

Amely giggled, and Adine motioned for Remy to hand her the papers. He stood back up and handed them over, and she began to leaf through them with the practiced eye of an intern who recently became a paid worker and would very much like to keep that going. Amely moved away from her side quickly, exploring the room. The paintings on the wall seemed to keep her interested for the moment, but she hadn't even glanced at Anna, who was standing awkwardly a few feet away from the other two adults.

Anna coughed, and Amely looked at her. A flash of confusion crossed her face, and she scurried over to the taller runner. "Who are you?"

Anna gaped for a moment, trying to formulate a response. It certainly wouldn't do to say that she was the girl's mother, given the circumstances, but it wouldn't be right to say she was Remy or Adine's friend either. She settled for, "I'm Anna," delivered in a tone that she hoped would ward away further questions of that sort.

Amely cocked her head. "Are you Mister Remy's wife?"

"No!" Anna denied, with a bit too much force. "No, I'm not in a relationship with Remy."

"Then what are you doing here?" asked Amely, bluntly. Anna wished she could have had this meeting earlier, when Amely wasn't coherent enough to interrogate her.

"Well, I'm helping Remy to raise you, since he's got to go on trips sometimes for his job." And also, Anna confided to herself, because he was just a bit incompetent at everything else he'd tried, and maybe risking it with a child wasn't the best idea. The only thing worse than being jailed was having to raise Amely by herself because Remy got the book thrown at him for neglect.

The shorter runner's eyes flashed with excitement, and she bobbed slightly on her feet. Her tail was wagging again, too. "So Mister Remy is really going to take me?"

Anna blinked. Was the situation still in flux to that degree? Or had Amely just not believed what Adine had, presumably, told her? Anna certainly hadn't been willing to believe adults when she was a kid, especially when they brought her good news. "As far as I know, yes. He didn't really have the choice, after all."

Amely stopped bobbing, though her tail-tip kept on flicking back and forth. "Why not?"

"Well he is your-He cares a lot about you." Anna swore mentally, allowing an awkward silence to settle. She and Remy had agreed not to discuss this kind of stuff with Amely until she was comfortable. It was time to redirect the conversation. What did kids like to talk about? "Which one of the paintings is your favorite?" Okay, so she hadn't had any good ideas. Couldn't blame a lady for trying.

"I like the sunrise, it's got a lot of happy colors." Amely pointed a claw at the painting she was talking about. It was a post-collapse human work, actually, showing the sun rising over the city from an aerial view. Pure fantasy, of course. Nothing had flown after the collapse until Adine came through the portal and did a few loop-de-loops to show off.

"That one's nice, yeah. I like the city street, myself." Anna pointed at her own favorite, picked mostly at random. Amely craned her neck to inspect it, since it was on the closer wall.

"It's so gray, though!" Amely actually seemed irritated by her taste in art, or subjective lack thereof.

Anna sorely wanted to return the irritation in kind, but getting into an argument with a child would be… counterproductive at this stage in the process. "The colors are supposed to come from your imagination, or the contrast between each of them, something like that. It seems like that only works for humans, though. I just like the look of the area."

Amely cocked her head, squinting at the painting. She practically glared at it for a solid fifteen seconds before glancing back at Anna. "I think it's broken."

Anna chuckled in response, and Adine glanced over at them. She shot Anna a glare and beckoned Amely to return to her and Remy. The girl made a disappointed sound and scurried back over to them. Anna had to use every fiber of her being to contain the sigh of relief that she wanted to release. Adine might have been an overzealous idiot, but she was certainly onto something if she could talk to kids all day long. How did she manage to restrain herself from making some rude remark?

Her rumination was interrupted by an excited yell from the others. She glanced over to see Amely practically wrapped around Remy, presumably overcome with joy.. Remy was smiling cautiously in response, and to complete the scene Adine looked quite satisfied as well. It was enough to make one wonder what they actually did to those orphans, that one would be so excited to get out of the system. Amely was gibbering in excitement, for goodness' sake.

She sidled over, keeping as far from Adine as was respectful. This put her right next to Remy, but whatever. He was busy with his daughter anyway. "So everything's… in order?" Anna asked. She could scarcely believe it herself, in truth. Most people had to wait until they got rid of their child to get a mansion.

"Yes, everything's as the law requires. We'll see how well you do on the order part, eh?" Adine gave Anna another nasty look. God, some people held grudges for way too long.

To her surprise, Remy actually returned Adine's look, but took a moment to think things over. "Please don't talk like that, Adine. Not while Amely's in the room, at least." Incredible, he could actually see things her way for once.

The wyvern lost some of her bravado, pulling her wings in a little more. "I'm sorry," she said, uncharacteristically quietly. "That was out of line."

Remy nodded, and they stood there staring at each other for a while until Amely decided it was a prime moment to butt in again.

"So is Miss Anna like, your maid or something?" she asked, staring up at Remy with plaintive eyes.

He blushed and both Anna and Adine started laughing, then stopped as they noticed the other's amusement. Remy shook his head a bit. "She's definitely not that." Amely opened her mouth to ask another question, and he gently shushed her. "It's a… very long story."

"That's the best kind of story!" Amely complained.

Adine looked at the two of them as they continued to converse, then pulled a stapled stack of sheets from her bag and begrudgingly handed it to Anna. "These are yours. Thought you could use a refresher on childcare."

She took the pages, leafing through them to find that they were mostly printouts of webpages and copied bits of books on the fine art of raising children. Most of it was boring and unfamiliar, but it'd probably be a useful scapegoat, if nothing else. Couldn't let Adine know that, though. "How delightfully passive-aggressive."

Adine bristled, but said nothing until she had zipped up her satchel. Her eyes fixed on Amely, and she took a long breath. "Amely, you don't have any problem staying here, right?"

Amely stared back at her, confused. "Not really… wait!" She held out a claw suddenly, as if to stop her old caretaker from leaving. "You'll come back and visit, right?"

"Um…" Adine held the noncommittal sound for as long as she could, looking everywhere but back at Amely. Her eyes lingered on Anna, and a grin slowly spread across the runner's face. Maybe Remy would be getting some use out of the living room after all. "...Yes! Yes, I'll come back when I can." At the hint of a frown on Amely's face, she held her wings out in front of her in a warding gesture. "You know how busy things can get… I'll bring Mr. Smith along next time, though!"

Amely's frown inverted, and she started wagging her tail again as she started moving around the room again to see what she had missed the first time. After the exchange of a few more pleasantries with Remy, Adine made her way to the door and pushed it back open. Anna swore she could see a hint of wetness around the corners of her eyes as the wyvern stared back at Amely, even as she maintained an impassive expression. After a moment, Adine closed the door. The thud carried a distressing amount of finality.

They all stared at the door for a few seconds. Anna, for one, was still letting the reality of her situation filter down through the strata of her mind. It'd probably hit her in a few hours, at which point someone was gonna cry, either her or Remy. Well, Remy would probably cry either way.

"Well." said Remy, breaking the silence. He glanced at the clock on the microdisc player by the TV. "It's past noon, anybody want some lunch?"

"I'm starved, now that you mention it," Anna replied.

Remy shot her an exasperated look. "How about you, Amely?"

Amely stared down at her stomach, giving it an experimental poke. It was a bit slimmer than Anna's, which might have had something to do with her not sitting behind a counter and eating junk food for the past few months. "I'm not that hungry."

"Not even for grilled cheese?" There was a sudden sparkle in Remy's eye. "I know for a fact that my grilled cheese is a favorite of practically everyone I've fed it to."

Amely's stomach rumbled. "...Okay. But only if you tell me who the person who didn't like it was."

Remy led them into the kitchen, just off to the side of the main room,set apart by a lower ceiling and darker wall finishings, and began retrieving sandwich materials from the refrigerator. "It was just a friend from work, actually. Apparently he can't stand melted cheese." He grabbed a pan from the rack above the island and put it on the stove, which was already glowing a dull red. A few pats of butter were set to sizzling in the pan before he turned back around. Anna and Amely had sat themselves on the stools across the island from him, and Amely was subtly mimicking the position of her progenitor's arms.

"So, what's on the agenda after lunch?" Anna asked.

Remy blinked. "I was just going to show Amely around, honestly. Maybe stream a movie or something. It's a little late to drive into the inner city and go out, and there's not much family-friendly stuff to do in the outer city."

"Fine by me," Anna shrugged.

Amely said nothing, though she looked a bit dejected.

Satisfied by that response, Remy turned back to the stove, putting six slices of bread-not white, some artisanal kind with nuts in-into the pan and pressing them down with a spatula. Anna raised an eye-ridge. How many sandwiches was he planning to make? She glanced over at Amely while the butter sizzled and Remy fussed over slicing the cheese. The girl was transfixed by the process too, though she seemed much more thoughtful and much less bored. Ironic.

"This is the secret-I toast both sides of the bread, so the sandwich is extra crunchy. Don't tell the guys at work how I do it, though. They might start thinking they know how to cook," Remy explained, flipping three of the six slices and assembling grilled cheeses on top of them with a few deft claw-movements. The level of grace he exhibited handling the cooking implements was almost shocking to Anna; he must have been practicing this for a long time, even before they came to this world. A sentimental reminder of Amelia, maybe?

"Hey, that reminds me. What do you do for work? You never told me, beyond taking lessons from outlands traders, or whatever." Anna had never seen Remy doing anything work related outside of his office, which was nice for her concentration but irritating to her curiosity. What on earth was he spending so long in there doing, anyway?

"I thought you were a librarian," interjected Amely.

Remy looked at her and sucked in the corner of his mouth. "In a sense, I am a librarian. There's a division of the city council, the Cultural Reclamation Office, that offers bounties for recovering knowledge and artifacts from the outlands, since so much was lost by the humans in the collapse. Most of the traders just sell off the stuff to private auctioneers, but the band I work with gives whatever they find to me, so I can check if it's, you know, actually worth anything." He stopped for a moment to flip the grilled cheeses.

Anna was suppressing a yawn, but Amely appeared transfixed. "So you're like a real-life version of Sheridan Snaith? That's so cool!"

"Well, I don't exactly raid tombs or anything. Most of what I look through is old phones and other such electronic junk from the old world. Lots of private files on them, which are worth a fair bit on the open market, given that the owners are…" He trailed off, and turned back to the stove to retrieve the sandwiches.

"They're dead, yes." Anna clarified. Remy started; he nearly dropped her plated grilled cheese onto the tiles before recovering and setting it on the counter next to Amely's.

Amely didn't react nearly so strongly, though she furrowed her brow a bit. "Well, they died a long time ago."

Anna knew that wasn't true-it had barely been half a decade since the collapse, and every human she'd ever met had lost someone in the chaos during and after the flare.

Remy ignored this fact, though; maybe he just hadn't had as much downtime to talk to random strangers. "Yeah, a long time ago, like the humans in Sheridan Snaith. Everything's a historical artifact now, like your grilled cheese will be if you let it get cold."

The wan look on Amely's face vanished, and she picked up the grilled cheese gingerly, so as not to pierce it with her claws. It audibly crunched as she took the first small bite, and a smile spread across her face nearly as broad as the one Anna had gotten by telling her she was going to be adopted. Anna took a bite as well, tearing into the sandwich ravenously. There were indeed four layers of toastedness to the bread, which certainly did make it crunchier. Maybe she was missing the point, but that didn't seem to actually improve the dining experience. Eh, it was still leagues ahead of anything she'd made herself-in a kitchen, at least. The only thing she could honestly fault Remy for when it came to cooking was that he might have put just a bit too much effort into the work-she wasn't sure the dragon could even make a bowl of cereal without doing something over-complicated to it first.

By the time Anna was halfway done with her sandwich, Amely had wolfed hers down and was eyeing Anna's greedily as well. The larger runner made a point of taking more with each bite, to finish a bit faster. Remy seemed to be trying to savor his, in contrast.

Anna had just swallowed her last crust when the doorbell rang and Remy actually did drop his grilled cheese, though it landed safely on his plate. He rushed to the door as the other two stood up and stared, curious. "Anna, can you clean up the dishes? I need to take Amely to see her room right now ," he said, with an odd intensity.

"Huh?" was all that she could muster in response before Remy quickly led Amely off to her room. "Wait, who is it?"

"The last person I want her to meet: one of my co-workers."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's notes:** Apologies for my lateness, Christmas (and Christmas one-shots) took up a lot of both my and Panoramic-Vacuum's time. Mad kudos to Pano for betaing my chapters. As always, I'm looking for constructive criticism and feedback on my work, both completed and uncompleted. Every bit of concrit I get helps me to improve as a writer, and create better stories for you.

* * *

Anna rested her hand on the lever handle of the front door, wondering if trepidation was warranted here. She didn't feel it, either way-whoever came through that door would be a human, and humans, for all their posturing, were still closer to prey than predators. The fireglands in the back of her throat twitched slightly as the doorbell rang again, and she yanked it open.

"Hello. Who are you?" It was a human on the other side of the door, one who spoke in an extremely perfunctory way.

"I could ask the same of you, since you're at my door?"

The man's hand went to his hip, just for a moment. There was nothing there that she could see, though. "This is Remy's door, last I checked." Maybe it was just his accent that made it seem like he was talking down to her; the words seemed to get clipped in some places and lilted in others, like a staccato burst of machine-gun fire. He looked her over, though his eyes didn't seem to find anything worth lingering on. "What are you, his new cherry?"

She didn't know what that word meant in that context, but by the way he said it it was probably at least mildly offensive. "I'm not his anything, thank you very much."

"Ah, maybe he's your new cherry, eh? Always seemed the type." The human held out a hand, relaxing. "I'm called Kaiser."

Anna shook his hand, wincing internally at the amount of dirt that seemed to suffuse its pores. "I'm Anna." she replied, as he pushed past her and into the main room.

Kaiser began looking around, though he stayed in one place as he did so. She took the opportunity to get a better look at him. He stood maybe one hundred seventy, one hundred eighty meters, and seemed to be mostly sinew. He wasn't rail-thin, but what there was of him was very… densely packed. It was hard to tell, though, because his shirt and pants were just baggy enough to totally conceal the build of his arms and legs. They also looked just as careworn as he did, which was to say quite a bit. A splatter of small oval scars marked his left cheek and part of his throat. Oh, and he had brown hair and light skin. Anna wasn't sure why humans cared so much about those last two-they barely even varied in color compared to dragons.

"Ag, where is he?" complained Kaiser. He looked back to her and she kept staring. He stared right back for a moment, totally silent, then shrugged. "Can't a man come over to his boet's house on a Wednesday afternoon?" This was the first thing, it seemed, that had actually irritated him.

Anna wasn't sure whether to be annoyed by his lack of reaction to her own attitude. She did work so hard at it, after all. "Apparently not."

Kaiser laughed, and took a seat on the couch. "Well, if he won't pick up my calls, I'll have to wait for him." He seemed right at home here, even more than she did, and when he flicked on the TV he didn't show any of the confusion that usually came with encountering a new remote sans manual. "We can swap stories while we wait, hey. I'm curious how you ended up in Remy's house if you don't want to be seen with the guy."

Anna got as comfortable as she could on the other end of the couch. "Aren't you forward," she replied.

They sat there in silence for a few moments before Kaiser continued. "I'll go first, then." He leaned forward, towards the other half of the V-shaped couch where Anna was perched. "You know what Remy does for a living, ja?"

She nodded, hesitant.

"Grave robbing, mostly," he continued. "Seems safe enough, right? Nah. There's plenty of people wanting to stop someone getting in their personal stash, or willing to kill them to get a choice bit of loot. That's where I come in." The couch creaked as Kaiser leaned back on it and grinned.

"So you're, what, some kind of scout? Or a contact with the locals?" He certainly seemed grimy enough to be a post-civilized savage.

"Oh no, bokkie, I kill people. Not just anyone, mind you!" he qualified, noting her surprise. "But when someone tries to stick a knife in your gut, you have to stick 'em back. That's the way this world works. 'Less you stick 'em first, from a safe distance."

Anna took a moment to process. Only a moment, though-most of what he said wasn't that shocking to her. She could tell why Remy didn't want him around the kid, though. "That seems fair to me."

"Yah. Know what's also fair?"

She rolled her eyes. "There's nothing much to say," she lied. "Remy, hmmm. Well, Remy has a kid," Kaiser raised a single eyebrow. "And I'm the mother. Legally the mother; Creator knows I wouldn't be here if the alternative wasn't jail time."

The mercenary appraised her again, taking an uncomfortably long look at her midsection. "You're lying."

Anna bristled at him. "I am not!"

"If you're a mother, I'm a springbok." He waved a hand dismissively. "Gon need a better story than that."

"Well, he had a girlfriend once upon a time-" She wasn't sure where she had been going when he cut her off. Probably something about adultery, though that would have been a calculated risk.

"I know."

Now she was mad, and the words spilled out, unbidden. "Then let me get to the part you don't know. That girlfriend died tragically, as you know, but he probably didn't tell you she was pregnant when she fell in that snowbank and froze. I was looking for frozen embryos for a prototype I was putting together, and all it took was asking my boyfriend to put in a good word with the police chief and I had a bunch of unborn Remy-spawn," she said, annoyed, then paused. The incident was ancient history to her, but it probably wasn't the wisest idea to share it with someone who she suspected was Remy's friend.

"That's pretty cold."

"Yeah, they had to be frozen or else they wouldn't keep," Anna continued, hiding a sigh of relief, "Anyway, I chimerized one of the eggs with my own DNA and created an egg that was essentially a mix of all three of us. My intent was to use it for further development, since it was biocompatible with me, but before I could some nosy asshole decided to tattle to the council and I had to get rid of it as fast as I could."

If Kaiser took issue with her dispassion, he didn't show it in his tone. "Abandoning your kid 'cause the kerels are coming? Think I saw a scavver do that once," he mused.

"She's not my kid just because she shares half of my DNA."

"Why'd you make a child, then? Didn't even get the fun of doing it the traditional way, seems like."

Anna sighed. At least he wasn't reacting as poorly to the story as Adine had. "You really are irrepressibly crude. Anyway, I needed to edit an embryo's bone marrow in order to test a genetic enhancement I was making to CD8 genomes on a large scale, and they had to be biocompatible."'

Kaiser gave her a blank look, which she returned

"I'll give you the short version, then: Amely, the kid in the next room playing with Remy, is the cure for cancer. Well, the cure for my specific cancer. That I don't have anymore."

He glanced at the door, and made an abortive attempt to stand. "He's just in the next room, huh?" Odd that he was more concerned with Remy, thought of the two cures for cancer in the house she didn't fault him for preferring the one that came without moral dilemmas.

"Yep. Decided to get in there in a real hurry when he saw you at the door." She wasn't sure if this was the right course of action, but it might at least be funny to watch Remy rag on someone else for a change.

"Hm. Well, best to let sleeping dragons lie." He got more comfortable on the couch, and returned his attention to the television show.

Anna was astounded. How could a self-proclaimed killer of men be so… pacific? At least his choice in TV wasn't too bad-it had been tuned to the same show as when Remy had turned it off that morning, and Kaiser had had no complaints.

* * *

Three episodes later, Remy finally emerged from Amely's room, frazzled. His expression didn't brighten when he saw Kaiser still there on the couch. "Oh! You're still here."

"I'm a very goal-oriented person." He grinned, standing and moving towards Remy.

Anna raised a claw to interject, but Remy spoke first.

"Well, Amely's napping right now, so we've got time to talk." Remy edged back a bit. "Why, er, why'd you show up on such short notice?"

"You know why, bru!" Kaiser lunged for Remy and wrapped him in a hug that only lasted a brief instant, though Remy still found that too long, given his blush. "Where've you been for the past week! I hadn't heard a peep from you and then I show up here and you've got a daughter! And an, er, roommate?" He glanced at Anna and she shrugged; the appellation was accurate enough.

"I wish you'd respect my personal space more," Remy mumbled, then continued. "Sorry, I was totally swamped with all the adoption paperwork, and getting the rooms for Anna and Amely ready. Guess the business just… slipped my mind."

Kaiser's face grew serious for a moment. "Yeah, a couple of people at the Lodge were getting upset by your… slipping. But that's in the past now."

"What lodge?" asked Anna, confused.

Remy answered before Kaiser could give his own perspective on the situation. "It's a group of merchants that sort of… monopolized the market for trade with the outlying settlements and tribes." He glanced at Kaiser, nervous.

"Yeah, for sure." The mercenary nodded, and sat back down on the couch, patting the space next to him to indicate that Remy should join. He did, after a moment, and they sat there silently until the nervous look had mostly faded from Remy's eyes. Anna half-expected Kaiser to throw his arm around Remy's shoulders, but they both kept a respectful distance. "So how's the life of a father treating you?" asked Kaiser, trying to break the tension.

Remy sighed, and flopped away from him onto the couch. "She only showed up today, but so far? It's the most fun I've ever had, and honestly I feel like I might be hallucinating the whole thing." He laughed.

Anna gave him a concerned glance. "I thought you'd been doing this for a while?" She knew how hard kids were to deal with, or at least had heard from friends. It had seemed a good enough reason to never have any. Would have been even better if that plan had worked out.

He rubbed the back of his head, carefully avoiding the spikes. "Yeah, for a few weeks I was working with Adine at the orphanage, and later on helping with the evacuation, but after that we went our separate ways. My plans to adopt Vara were lost in the shuffle, and you saw how long it took me to get Amely back. And now thinking about doing this every day, it's just unbelievable."

"What kind of unbelievable?" Kaiser ventured cautiously.

"I didn't wait five years to see my own daughter's face just to reject her." Remy sounded irritated, but the others breathed a sigh of relief. "After that, part of me's excited to see you try parenting, Anna. You might actually like it."

"So now you're shifting your duties onto her instead of onto me? I feel betrayed," Kaiser said, jokingly.

Remy was on a roll as far as embarrassed looks today. "Yeah, about that. I know that we're good friends, and you've saved my bacon on many occasions, but I'd rather you keep your distance from Amely for now, at least for a week or two."

Kaiser cocked his head, confused. "Why?"

"Well, it's… you're a very dangerous man, which is great when we're outside but I don't know if she's ready for that level of… you." Remy gestured at Kaiser's whole bearing with a single sweeping motion.

Anna cringed. This reminded her too much of the beginning of one of her screaming arguments.

Kaiser frowned, but didn't raise his voice. "Have you looked out the window recently, friend? The world out there is just as dangerous as I am, and it cares a heck of a lot less about her."

"It's just for a few weeks, okay. I-we need time to prepare her for what's out there."

"What are you going to do, hmm? Teach her to handle a gun? Break handcuffs? If it's not safe to let her out now, it won't be in a fortnight either."

"She's my daughter, not yours!" Remy got off the couch, and moved to stand nose-to-nose with Kaiser, who was still sitting.

He stood up suddenly, and Remy yelped. " You're right about that. So tell me: how do you plan to keep her out of the way when we need to discuss Lodge business?"

"Anna can take care of Amely then, and we can meet in my office. Besides, that won't need to happen that much more; I'm planning on leaving soon, moving back to the inner city and getting a less hands-on job."

Kaiser blanched, which accentuated the scars trailing all the way up to his nose. "Leaving? That'll be hard to do on such short notice." He paused, scratching at his unmarked cheek. "I'll put in a good word for you if someone asks, though."

Remy laughed, the stress draining from the room. "I'm sure the council goons will love that one. 'Here's my letter of recommendation, it's from a contract killer,'."

"Heh, just like the guys at the bar like hearing about my exciting adventures looking at old books with a librarian." Kaiser checked his watch. "Oh, I've got to get moving. No office work for me between trips, just errands." He made for the door, nodding to Anna and waving to Remy. "See you at the Lodge tomorrow, yah?"

"Uh-huh, see you then," said Remy. Kaiser closed the door very lightly behind him, and Remy waited until he had driven off to collapse back on the couch, breathing heavily. "Jesus." He must have picked that one up after he got here.

Anna moved closer to the middle of the couch, to get a better view of the screen now that the interloper was gone. "What's that about?" she asked, confused. "He seemed pretty friendly to me, maybe a bit too much."

Remy closed his eyes, bringing his breathing back into line. "Kaiser is… a good actor. Don't get me wrong, he's in control of himself, but that man is a psychopath. I half-thought one of my higher-ups at the Lodge had sent him to rough me up for disrespecting them."

"Wait, you said you liked this job."

He raised his head off of the couch in order to shake it. "Oh, it's a great job. The problem is, my bosses are used to working with, well, scum. The kind of person who the council's army turned away, or who couldn't make it in the inner city. They haven't quite grasped the concept of an honest man yet."

Anna suppressed a grin at Remy's expense. From the sound of it, he'd fallen in with a bunch of criminals and hadn't realized yet. "If there's one thing you are, Remy, it's honest."

Remy's mood lightened a bit. "That almost sounded like a compliment."

"Trust me, it wasn't. The only people who think they don't need to lie are the ones being lied to."

"Or people who value their relationships with others more than their own self-interest," Remy deadpanned.

Anna's eyes widened suddenly, and she pointed at Remy from across the couch. "Wait a minute! You left me to meet Kaiser and hid away in the bedroom! Which one of us is self-interested now?"

Remy's wings pressed against his body in a defensive gesture. "It's not like he would have attacked you. I just wanted to make sure Amely was out of the way."

"Which is why you hid in there for nearly an hour and a half, sure. Also, just to be clear, if he had attacked me you'd need to come up with a new plan for Amely's spare caretaker, because I'd be in prison and he'd be in the ground." She spread her claws for emphasis.

"I don't think that's very amusing." Remy looked down at the floor for a long moment. "You're right, though. If it comes down to it, I can't throw you under the bus and you can't abandon me without facing the music." Remy paused to think; Anna didn't like where this was going. "I guess what I'm saying is, we need to trust each other instead of working at cross purposes all the time."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Alright, whatever." This wasn't the first time someone had told her that. Last time, she'd handed Damion all her notes in hopes of getting a partner in her research and he'd promptly photocopied them and started blackmailing her. Trust, in summary, was an excellent form of bait.

"Hey, don't be like that. I know exactly what you think of me, but can't you at least humor me? I put my neck out for you in that meeting, after all."

She looked away, anywhere but at Remy's puppydrake eyes. He was right about the meeting. This was a moment of weakness for her, apparently, and she sighed. "Fine. Where do I start?"

In an instant, his posture shifted from defensive to confused, his wings loosening. "Huh? It's pretty simple to trust someone, just don't be suspicious of them all the time." Anna stared at him blankly, and he continued after a moment. "If you need something more concrete, I guess it'd be good to start with helping each other out, and I've got an idea for something that'll help both of us."

Anna regarded him with suspicion for a moment, then chided herself. This was for… well, it was for her, namely her continued life in this small mansion instead of in a prison cell. "Which is?"

"Well, I made lunch for the both of us, so I figure it's only fair that you make dinner."

"I'll do it." How hard could it be? All she had to do was look up a recipe and follow the directions. Simple as gel electrophoresis, and she'd done that when she was eight.

Remy managed to hide his confusion behind an expression of relief. "Great! You don't mind if I take a walk for a bit, do you? Some fresh air would do me some good."

Anna waved him away, focusing on her tablet as she flipped through a couple digital cookbooks. "Sure, whatever."

Remy opened his mouth for a moment, but whatever he was going to say got caught in his throat. He shook his head and moved towards the door, checking the peephole and grabbing his bags before heading out. "Bye!" he said, closing the door behind him

* * *

This was not as easy as gel electrophoresis. For one thing, there were a lot more steps, and none of them involved agar or charged saline baths. Luckily, nobody had seen her first attempts to juice a lemon (and nobody would-she'd eaten far worse things in her day), but when Remy walked through the door she was still struggling to work the spatula with her claws, and the asparagus was suffering for it.

He didn't seem to notice as he walked into the kitchen and gasped. "Woah, you made all this? I would have been fine with mac and cheese, honestly." He looked under one of the foil-covered masses sitting on a cutting board next to her. "Are these my salmon filets? I never got the hang of cooking fish."

Anna hissed in irritation, and would have slapped him away were she not using both hands on the spatula and pan. "Hands off, that needs to rest!"

He recoiled, then grinned. "You know that leaving the food to rest just means taking it off the heat, right?"

"I know lots of things." she replied, trying to focus. Only a few minutes left until this was ready to serve, according to the site she'd looked at. "Can you get me some plates from the cabinet?"

"Yeah." Remy stretched out his wings to keep balanced as he reached up on his hind legs for the dishes in the upper row of cabinets. "You didn't have to learn how to cook in order to spite me-Woah!" He swayed, and nearly dropped the stack of plates in his claws before quickly setting them down.

Anna narrowed her eyes, just for a moment. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Remy hummed thoughtfully, and she ignored him, letting the pan's sizzle fill the silence. After a bit more cooking, she cut the heat and spread out the veggies on the three plates he had provided, then used the spatula-ever-so-carefully-to transfer the filets to her and Remy's plates. He moved as if to raise an objection, and she pulled a knife out of the block next to the stove and sliced his slightly larger filet in two, moving one half to Amely's plate and putting a slice of lemon on top of each piece. "Hope she likes fish," he remarked.

"She's got my genes, if she doesn't like fish I'd need to adjust my theories massively." She moved to set the table, and Remy interjected.

"I can get these, why don't you go get Amely?"

Anna shrugged and left him to arranging silverware. "Whatever you say, sir," she grumbled sarcastically. Eh, it wasn't worth getting mad over. Some people just couldn't restrain their jealousy of her, it wasn't their fault. In a way, it was almost like a compliment.

Caught up in her thoughts, she nearly ran into Amely's bedroom door before regaining her awareness. She didn't hear any noise from inside; the girl was probably still asleep. To keep from waking her, Anna slowly pushed down the door's lever handle and hinged it open, only to start as she heard an excited yap from inside. Amely was sitting on the bed cross-legged, clutching a book. "Hi Ms. Anna!"

It took her a moment to reply, she was taken aback. "Uh, hi Amely. I made dinner for us, could you come to the table?"

Amely dog-eared the page in her book and set it aside, hopping up off the bed and running over to Anna, then right past her and to the kitchen. Anna could hear Remy's greetings from where she stood, and for the slightest instant felt a pang of annoyance. At very least, she had wanted to ask Amely why she hadn't been napping like Remy said she was. By the time she had returned to the kitchen, though, those feelings were gone.

"You have had fish before, right?" Remy asked. Anna had apparently just caught the tail end of his greetings with Amely.

"Yeah, in sandwiches."

"This isn't exactly the same. See, this fish is-"

Anna cut in, annoyed. "Why don't you just let her try it? It's not like I've ever had salmon before either, since they hadn't evolved yet back home."

Remy opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. "That's fair," he said, after a beat, then sat down-well, stood next to-the table. Anna and Amely took their places as well. Amely moved her mouth towards her plate, and he raised a claw. "Remember to be polite," he chided.

"Thank you for making us this dinner, Ms. Anna," Amely said, abashed. Despite trying to stay focused on Anna, her eyes kept darting back to the meal hungrily. Anna chose to take that as a compliment.

"You're welcome," she replied, and Amely happily dug in, ignoring Remy's protestations about the use of silverware. The larger runner picked up the steak knife Remy had put out for her and examined it quizzically, comparing it to the claws of her other hand, then put it down with a laugh and began slashing her filet into small pieces by hand. He grimaced.

"You're too used to human guests, Remy," she pointed out, taking her first bite. Huh, this fish was a lot less pungent than Moorevilla, to its credit.

"I'll never get used to human guests," he replied, and Anna smirked. There was barely a trace of the resentment and pity that had tainted their interactions at their last meeting. Bribing someone with food wasn't the most honorable way to deal with them, but it certainly worked. If she avoided thinking about the future, this could almost be bearable.

"In any case, you're coming with me to take Amely to school tomorrow, right?" Remy continued, ignoring his daughter's groan of disappointment.

Oh. Well, at least she had some meat to numb the annoyance. Meat never expected anything of you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes:** Sorry for the slowness of this chapter's release, I've been going through some personal stuff on the side. I think we're finally getting to the meat of the action, though, so that's good. As always, thanks to Panoramic_Vacuum for being my beta reader/cheerleader :P.

* * *

The second trip through the wall was much less interesting, though Anna did get a much better look at its pitted and scarred outer surface. The human that had been so excited to meet her wasn't even at the south gate today, though that wasn't really so disappointing. Once they were through, Remy took a different turn than the one that would take them to her place, down one of the city's outer boulevards lined with modest five-or-six story structures interspersed with tasteful gardens and sitting areas.

They'd just passed the third vacant lot-cum-vegetable garden when Anna pointed something out. "This is an awfully long way to drive every day to get to school."

Remy shrugged, not taking his eyes off the road. "Amely, Adine, and I decided it would be best not to move Amely to a new school right in the middle of the school year. Besides, this really isn't that bad of a drive, there's barely any traffic out here. You should see what it's like outside the council halls." He glanced to the right. "See, here we are."

Anna looked out her window and gasped inaudibly. The school building was bigger than her entire complex and positively thronged with students, both dragon and human, all moving between its various outbuildings, including a large cluster of prefabricated rooms that looked recently installed. Strangest of all, apart from the parents and teachers, there didn't appear to be anyone past the age of ten in the whole crowd. "No way, this is all an elementary school?"

"The humans aren't big on our holistic model of education, yeah," Remy said, letting the car pull them into the back of a line of cars stretching through a parking lot all the way to the front doors of the main building.

"No, I mean it's huge!"

"Eleven hundred students. Used to be a fair bit smaller, before the dragons showed up, but what was the school board to do?"

Anna looked to the seat behind her where Amely was gazing out the window, looking for her friends. "What do you think? You're the expert here."

"Huh? It's, uhhhh, good? I guess you never feel lonely." She seemed confused by something happening outside, and Anna tried to figure out what. A couple of human women were walking on the sidewalk by the main gate, children in tow. All of them had their car fixed with a nasty glare-though the kids didn't seem to share the feeling.

Anna glared back at them as the car crept closer to the gate. One of them turned and said something to the rest of her group, and they all laughed. Anna couldn't help but feel like she was the butt of the joke. "Who are they?" she asked, pointing them out with a claw.

"Just some human parents, they're nothing to worry about," Remy replied, keeping his eyes on the road despite the fact that the car was in automatic mode.

"That's Jacklyn's mom," said Amely, pointing out the joke-teller, who was standing next to a scruffy-looking human boy. "Jacklyn says she told him not to play with me at recess." It seemed a silly thing to be sad about, but Amely sounded a bit distraught over it.

They pulled up past the ladies and came to a stop just in front of the gate. "Alright, this is your stop. You have everything you need?" asked Remy, moving away from the wheel to look at Amely.

She grabbed her satchel from the hump seat beside her and clipped her lunchbox to the strap just below the main bag, then threw the whole assembly over her shoulder. "Yeah."

"Alright, I'll pick you up by the side gate after school." Remy leaned in to give Amely a quick peck on the cheek, and she blinked, surprised, before pushing open the door and hopping down onto the sidewalk. The burble of human and dragon conversations washed over them like a cold shower as she hopped out, and at that moment the gaggle of moms caught up with the car.

Jacklyn's mother pulled him to the other side of the wide path and muttered something to him. Anna didn't catch exactly what, but the word monster seemed to feature prominently. Amely didn't appear to care, but Anna felt her toe-claws twitch. Who did this lady think she was, to call her creation a monster? To call any dragon a monster! Before she knew it, her hand was pushing open the passenger door and she was striding towards the group, lifting up her stance to appear taller.

It worked. She had nearly three inches on the tallest human there, and for a moment their smug smiles were broken by anxiety. "You said something about dragons. Would you care to repeat that?" asked Anna.

Jacklyn's mother stepped forward, nearly nose-to-snout with Anna. "I'm not afraid of you, dragon. I'll do what I have to to keep my son safe, because I love him." She narrowed her eyes. "But you wouldn't know how that feels, lizard."

Anna took a step back, speechless. Her mind had suddenly descended into a state of civil war-no, no, no, she didn't have a daughter! "Maybe not, but I know that Amely can keep herself safe, because she isn't an overgrown monkey." Her voice was cold despite her inner turmoil. Sometimes one had to retreat to the facts to keep the emotions safely hidden.

"What happens when she decides my son looks like prey, huh?"

"Right now you're starting to-"

"ANNA!" Remy shouted from behind her. The humans took a few steps back. She whipped her head around, eyes narrowed to pinpricks. The corner of his mouth had curled up, exposing a few of his teeth, and he spoke with a quiet but smoldering anger. "Get back in the car."

"This isn't over," she whispered to Jacklyn's mother, and the woman turned up her nose and looked away as she got back into the car.

When the door finally slammed shut, Remy turned to her, frowning, as the car began to drive off, past the outer gate and back into the endless gentrified tracts. "What was that?" he asked. It didn't sound like he wanted the answer.

"I was trying to teach that bitch a lesson."

"You were trying to get yourself arrested. Have you never interacted with another person without pissing them off?"

Anna began to spit out an ornery reply, then choked. She didn't feel that righteous fury anymore. There was a chill in her chest, and she felt like she was about to cry. What was this new bullshit? She turned away from Remy, crossing her arms. "Yes."

"Really? Because honestly, it feels like you usually decide to say what the person you're talking to will like the least!" He sighed, resting his head against the steering wheel for a moment. "I'm…augh! No, I'm not sorry. You-you can't do this to us." His anger seemed to be fading too.

"Us? Hah, what do you care what I do?" She took solace in bitterness, but her guts were still twisting around. She didn't actually feel guilty for getting called out by Remy, of all people?

Remy looked at her, and she wasn't sure what the expression in his eyes was. "What you do affects all of us. I hope to gods she didn't hear what you said! Hell, even beyond that, what happens if you get banned from going on campus because you're starting fights? How will you take Amely to school when I'm not around, you know, like you agreed to do a week ago?"

"Don't patronize me. She started it anyway, with all those bigoted comments." She turned away again, and she meant it this time.

"You both sounded pretty bigoted to me."

"But everything I said was right!" Ah, there was her anger again, covering her like an old blanket.

Remy's head thudded against the steering wheel, and he didn't reply. They sat there in silence for a long time, only breaking it momentarily to pass through the wall gate. Even there, their speech was clipped and cursory, and the dragon guard on duty gave her a strange look. As they pulled out of the gate, Remy gulped, and looked Anna in the eyes. She glared back at him, though that was mostly posturing.

He sighed. "Just don't do it again, okay?"

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes.

"Remember, we have to trust each other to make this work."

She noticed that phrasing. 'Make this work', what did that mean? What was 'this' that they had together? There certainly wasn't any romance between them, but the presence of a child meant that they weren't roommates either. Maybe she was his maid, in a sense? Or maybe he was cleaning up her messes, considering the circumstances. Agh, she was in a funk. She needed something to distract her. "Remy, can you take me by the Lodge? The actual building, that is. If there is one."

He started, having apparently also been deep in thought. "Sure, though it's not much to look at and I can't take you inside. Guess there's some interesting vehicles in the parking lot from time to time, though." He reached over to the touch screen on the car's center console and tapped in a new destination, which showed up a few miles further out on the map. "Oh, I guess it's a bit of a drive, but we didn't have any other plans today anyway."

"No, not really," mused Anna. She had wanted to download the trial version of the nanoCAD software that her textbook suggested, but really all she would have been able to do is play around with it. Nevermind that an engineer on her homeworld would have sold their left frill to get their hands on that kind of tool.

As they drove towards the Lodge, the buildings on either side of the highway got more and more dilapidated, though Anna noticed a few intact areas cordoned off by high fences and scaffolding watchtowers. The highway itself was elevated, but she saw a few flickers of motion that were large enough to be possible threats.

"There it is, up ahead," Remy said, pointing. The Lodge, she realized, was the tower she had seen every time they had driven out here. It seemed a bit smaller up close, but it still towered over anything else in the area. Once upon a time, it must have been an office block, judging by the mirrored windows on the upper portion, but the lower floors were wrapped in scaffolding that had been reinforced with metal sheeting. It almost reminded her of the old human fortifications, before they had invented guns or not randomly murdering people.

Surrounding the base of the tower was a maze of chain-link fences and prefabricated walls that divided the wide plaza area into a series of secure chambers, though what lie inside was concealed by tarps pinned to the fences. Remy pulled up to a small shed next to the gate and rolled down his window. There was a bored-looking soldier inside the shed, wearing a ballistic vest over a polo shirt and slacks. "Mister yn Rhyfedd… and guest?" the guard drawled. "I can't let her in without putting this through to the higher-ups. Just a moment." He turned to the computer next to him and tapped in a short message. There was no immediate reply.

"Come on Jules," said Remy, reading the guard's name tag. "She's just a friend who wanted a tour of the place while we're out here."

"And I told the head of security that she's here, so he can decide whether to let you two in. Out of my hands now."

"What if I put in a good word for you the next time we were assembling an away team?" Remy leaned towards Jules, waggling an eyebrow. Anna suppressed a chuckle at how silly he looked.

"Don't try and bribe me." The computer pinged and Jules glanced over at it. "Alright, you can head through into the outer zone. No further unless you leave her outside."

"Alright." Remy pulled the car forwards. "Er, you have a nice day."

"You too." Jules rolled his eyes, and they pulled through the gate into a broad parking area. It was, in many ways, the exact opposite of the parking lot they had dropped Amely off in. For one thing, nobody appeared to have much respect for traffic law, wedging in haphazardly and only barely avoiding parking each other in or damaging each other's vehicles. Not that that would have been easy, since there were few regular cars in the lot. To one side there were at least 30 identical trucks, painted drab gray other than stenciled on lettering that set them apart by letter and number. Accompanying them were an assortment of other ashen military vehicles, from ambulances to fuel trucks. Disturbingly, at least a few of them had guns mounted, and one-an APC labeled F3-had a very functional looking cannon on top of it.

In contrast to the small army's worth of transport on one side of the lot, the other side was a total mismash. Regular cars mixed in with strange modified vehicles which boasted everything from boosted suspensions to jagged metal spears.

"Who drives to work in a car that's half made of sharp rusty metal?"

"Some people live out beyond the tower, and need it to keep safe." Remy turned to her, smirking. "Honestly though, most of them just think it's cool." He pulled into a free space, next to a relatively normal-looking van. "There's not really much to see outside of here." An awkward silence settled over them, and Anna sighed.

"Let's get home." She was a bit angry at herself for wasting this much time.

Remy grumbled, pensive, then started, looking at something outside the window. "Oh! It's Colleen."

Anna glanced out as well, and saw a small human woman approaching their vehicle wearing a long white coat. Two more guards trailed her, but she didn't appear to acknowledge their presence. "Who's Colleen?"

"Technically, she's my direct superior, but I mostly report to the council," said Remy, fumbling with the door handle. She was nearly at the car when he finally pushed the door open and stumbled out onto the pavement. Despite Remy being nearly double her size in total, she still stood slightly taller than him.

"Mister yn Rhyfedd. You are aware that your schedule is open today?" She said, looking down her nose at him.

His ears blushed slightly. "Yes ma'am, I was just taking-"

She frowned. "I did not spend ten years getting my degrees in order to be addressed as 'ma'am'."

Remy cowered slightly, glancing at the impassive soldiers flanking her. "Y-yes, Doctor Hayes." He gulped. "As I was saying, I was just bringing my, er, friend, Anna here to see the facility." He gestured to Anna, who was still sitting in the car, though watching the interaction with interest.

"I was not aware you had friends, Mister yn Rhyfedd. That said, I would love to speak to your… companion." Colleen grinned, showing off a mouthful of unnaturally shiny teeth. When Anna didn't leave the car, she beckoned with a hand. "Come over here, please. I don't bite."

Not wanting to set Remy off again, Anna opened her own door and circled around the car. Colleen hadn't seemed that odd from a distance, but there was definitely something off about her on closer inspection. For one, she only breathed every one or two minutes, and the scar on the back of Anna's neck prickled when she got close. It had never done that before; the doctors hadn't even mentioned the possibility of the nanites having a reaction.

"Hello, Miss Forasach," said Colleen, holding out a hand.

Anna grasped it cautiously and shook. How had she known her last name? Anna barely remembered it herself most days. "Likewise, Doctor Hayes. I have a doctorate as well, actually, in pharmaceutical practice."

Colleen wrinkled her lip. "Mhm. Well, I've heard a fair bit about your career. Despite your… misadventures, I must say that your work in genetics is impressive. How did you come to befriend Mister yn Rhyfedd?"

"Who's telling you all this information about me?" Anna asked, narrowing her eyes. Unlike Remy, she could easily stand nose-to-nose with Colleen.

She took a step back, wrinkling her nose. "The Lodge has many sources of intelligence, but my knowledge of your work comes from the public record. There was quite a bit of coverage on all five of you, during the evacuation. And Alex, of course. But apart from her, you all have retreated from the spotlight. But back to the topic at hand: what have you been up to, that you're working with him?"

Anna tensed. Kaiser was one thing, but this woman appeared actually intelligent, and that made her cautious. "Just a… joint project. I didn't have much to work with before that, so coming out here and using Remy's resources was a requirement."

"Yes, his resources." Colleen nodded, though her tone made it clear that she knew Anna was lying. "On the subject of resources, are you impressed by what you've seen of our operation so far?" Colleen asked, gesturing to the rows of military machinery.

Anna gave into the itch and scratched the back of her neck. "It all seems a bit threatening, to be honest."

Colleen smiled, and her teeth seemed to be whiter and sharper than any human's should have been. "Trust me, you would know if the Lodge was making an effort to be threatening."

Anna shivered.

Remy laughed nervously. "Well, that's probably enough chit-chat for one day. I'm sure you have a lot to do, Doctor Hayes, just like we do." He prodded Anna with a wingtip, trying to get her to play along.

"Yes, I had some prototypes to run through testing back at the, er, lab." She didn't mention that the prototypes did not yet exist and would likely never be built, or that the lab was actually the living room.

"Likewise. I'll see you tomorrow, Mister yn Rhyfedd. And, er, Doctor Forasach, I await the results of your project with bated breath."

"It's a small thing, probably won't even get council attention, but I hope you're impressed."

"Hm. Seems a small challenge for a woman of your talent." Colleen snapped her fingers, and the two guards turned on their heels and began to move away, though she waited a moment before following, silently examining Anna with too-sharp eyes before following the soldiers back inside.

Remy let out the breath he had been holding in an explosive cough. "Let's get back to the car," he said, seemingly exhausted, and headed back without waiting for Anna.

She followed, after a moment, and took her seat silently. She wanted to ask if Remy was afraid of all of his coworkers and bosses or they just had had bad luck so far, but that probably wouldn't go over well. Besides, if they were all like this that was totally understandable.

Thanks to her decision, Remy spoke first, once they were a mile or two down the road. "A 'joint project', huh? Can't say I've heard that euphemism before."

"What was I supposed to tell her, that the venerable cancer-curer had decided the housewife life was right for her?"

"Venerable's a bit of a stretch, I think. But yeah, pretty much. You might think impressing her is important, but trust me, she won't be any more impressed by anything you've done in the past than what you're doing right now. Lady used to work for Aleph-Zen, she probably invented the nanites that cured your cancer."

"Really?" asked Anna. She'd seen the A-Z logo all over the place, but the actual employees of the megacorp that had built this city were less than forthcoming about it.

"Yep, Director of Biotechnology Development, that was her old title."

Anna frowned, staring out at the ruins around them. "What's a bureaucrat doing out here?"

Remy shrugged. "I don't know. She's not eager to talk about things that don't make her look good. You two have a lot in common."

They did, too. Anna wasn't sure if that was scary or just plain annoying. She didn't bother replying, but grumbled slightly as they headed back to the house. It still looked pretentious to her, but at least it was home...ish. She took her time getting out of the car but Remy hurried in, mentioning some paperwork he had forgotten to file. Ignoring him, she headed for the couch and flopped down with her tablet, ready to actually do some work.

* * *

In the next four hours, Anna made very little actual progress. The Lucy™ nanoCAD software her books' examples used was, of course, incompatible with her brand of tablet; she hadn't paid it too much attention, but the device was an Aleph-Zen invention too. Unlike the software, apparently. She'd found an open-source alternative, but by the time she got it configured and was starting to translate the first few examples into the unfamiliar interface, Remy was already getting ready to leave again.

"I'm going to pick Amely up from school. Are you coming?" He glanced over at her, in the midst of affixing his tie.

"No thanks. I'm still trying to figure this out." Anna showed him the mess of toolbars and viewports on her screen; he didn't appear to understand any more of it than she did.

He shrugged. "Probably for the best."

"Whatever, I'm busy." She wanted to get angry at his insinuation, but her anger could only stay focused on one thing at a time, and right now that was the designed-by-committee interface in front of her.

"Alright, I'm off," he said, closing the door behind him.

She waved goodbye halfheartedly as he left, before getting back to Example 2: Smart Silt. It took almost an hour, but she was nearly ready to run the first simulation when her phone rang. Since the phone was integrated into her tablet, this made using the software impossible, so she picked up despite her desire not to. "This is Anna, and I don't want whatever you're selling."

"This is Remy, and you already bought it. Anyway, you won't believe this," said Remy through the phone, clearly excited. There were the sounds of children and traffic around him.

"I can believe quite a lot."

"Well, apparently Amely's friends with somebody we already know. I didn't know V-" he was cut off by the phone ringing again.

"Hang on, I have someone on another line." She toggled over to it, annoyed at the interruption to her interruption. "Who is this?"

"Ms. Forasach. We have an offer to make you, one which we believe to be quite equitable…"


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:** Sorry for my lateness with this chapter, but let me tell you, it was a real pain in the butt to write. Hopefully the next one is both a)faster to write and b)more fun to write, eh? Special thanks to Panoramic_Vacuum on this one, because he gave me a suggestion that in my opinion makes the chapter actually somewhat interesting, instead of the boring mess I had initially written.

* * *

"Colleen?" asked Anna, confused. She wasn't familiar enough with human voices to always distinguish them, especially when they were as distorted as this.

"That's Doctor Hayes to you, miss. We discussed this earlier, as I recall."

Anna rubbed her temple, suddenly wearied. "I was under the impression that those were Remy's orders, not mine." She'd had these kind of conversations before, but they had always annoyed her and being six months (and then some) out of practice had not prepared her to be on the back foot again. "I don't work for you, as I recall."

"Not yet. If you're done blathering, the offer which the Lodge has prepared to give you, on my advice, is as follows: you replicate your experiments with cross-species chimerization in our laboratories in order to demonstrate the technique, and turn over the result, as well as any additional relevant information, to our scientists for further use." Colleen was definitely reading off a script; she sounded even more bored than usual.

"In exchange for appropriate compensation, yes?" Anna wasn't really concerned about the money, but she certainly wouldn't mind it, and she wasn't about to give away half a decade's work for free.

"The amount of your compensation will be discussed after we have seen the technique in action, but I can assure you it will be significant." Colleen paused, thinking. "And, of course, the inventor of the technique would be hailed as a medical genius, and no doubt go down in history."

Fame, eh? This was the first thing Colleen had said that she actually liked. "Sounds like a good deal to me, then. As long as you supply the materials; my old sourcing methods were… less than reliable."

"It will be little trouble for us. Report to the Lodge at six AM tomorrow, the same time as Mr. yn Rhyfedd. Your orientation should take less than two hours, and then we can get to work."

Anna sighed. "I can't do that."

Colleen's professionalism cracked for a split second, and beneath it Anna heard undisguised contempt. "Why on earth not?"

Anna tried to think of an excuse, but nothing presented itself. Feeling the growing tension on the other end of the line, she let the words spill out. "Someone needs to take Remy's daughter to school and back."

"Mr. yn Rhyfedd's… daughter?"

"Yes, his daughter, Amely." It wasn't as painful to say as she'd expected.

"I presume this is your 'joint project' then. A clever fabrication, though I'd appreciate it far more if it had not been aimed at me."

"I have my reasons."

"Mmh. Well, the Lodge can grant you some time to think of a solution to this scheduling issue, but the offer will only stand for so long. After that… well, I have deadlines to meet either way."

"I'll make sure to use that time effectively, then," Anna replied quickly. Her finger hovered over the red icon to hang up.

"See to it that you do." Before Anna could cut the call, Colleen abruptly hung up, leaving Anna to mull things over. The offer was certainly appealing, but it'd be scheduling hell to deal with, and of all the people she wanted to hand her research over too, Colleen wasn't exactly the first she'd have picked. Anna's gut still twinged involuntarily at the thought of her unnatural demeanor, and what she'd learned from Remy wasn't much better. Colleen certainly seemed too proud to steal her notes outright, but who knew what she was willing to do to get a look at them?

Her breathing quickened slightly, and she felt a pang of empathy for Remy's mood yesterday. How long it would be until this offer became one she couldn't refuse? Weeks? Days? Hell, was someone waiting outside right now? She glanced out the front window nervously, but the street was empty. Taking a slow breath out, she tried to calm herself. She'd been on the run from the police for months on end; a pushy employer was nothing compared to that. Besides, this was what she wanted, right? Fame and possibly fortune-just had to work out the schedule. Maybe Remy would be able to take some sick days.

Anna swiped back to the first call, but Remy was no longer on the other line. Great, now she'd need to tell him some other time. It'd need to be when Amely wasn't around, too, because she'd definitely ask too many questions about the, er, previous experiment. Maybe she just needed something to distract her. Remy had said something about Amely's new friend, "Va-", but he'd gotten cut off. How many children did she know whose names started with V?

Zero. She knew basically one child by name, which was somewhat unsurprising considering her line of work, and also the fact that she had always tended to go out of her way to avoid children. How cruelly ironic that she was one of the first of Alex's friends to… produce a child, despite being the youngest. Anna sighed, realizing that the other kid was probably nothing special anyway. Remy did tend to get excited over strange things.

Now, getting back to her simulation, that was exciting. Fumbling slightly with the controls, she began the first simulation of her first exercise in this new science. Everything seemed to be going fine; the bots were light enough to ride river currents and dealt with the nitrates in the sediments excellently. As the simulation went on, however, something odd began to happen. Several of the bots had gone haywire, apparently, and were now producing some very nasty fulminant compounds from the nitrate. The water was heating up around them, soaring towards a boiling point-

The lock on the garage door clinked as it was undone, and Remy walked in. "You haven't moved an inch, I see," he joked, and she looked up. Amely was still in the garage, slowed by her backpack.

"I was working on this exercise," she replied, defensively holding up the tablet to show her work. Not like Remy would understand; she barely would have a month ago.

He smirked. "That's a very nice crater, Anna."

"Huh?" She turned the tablet around, and saw that the simulation had ended after all of her bots had disintegrated. Apparently the fulminate problem was more severe than she thought, because the last image recorded from the virtual environment was a crater carved out of the riverbed, only beginning to refill with water. "That… that was what I was trying to do."

"Really? I thought the goal of the Smart Silt excercise was to develop a semi-active nanite capable of operating in marine conditions that can locate, intake, and oxidize nitrate ions in order to release them as stable nitrogen gas."

How the hell had he known that, unless..."When did you read my textbook?" she asked.

"I didn't read your copy, I borrowed it from the library a few months ago because I was bored." He rubbed his front thigh with the opposing forepaw. "The basic principles aren't really that hard, but I could never grasp the harder stuff."

" _Show-off,_ " she grumbled, looking back down at the tablet screen.

Looking downcast, Remy busied herself with helping Amely, who was still struggling. "Jeez, Amely, did you smuggle Vara home in this?" he asked, helping lift the bag with a shoulder. The position was mostly to blame for his difficulty in shifting the load

"No! It's always this heavy," she replied, oddly defensive. They finally managed to maneuver it inside, dumping it on the couch next to Anna. "Hey Ms. Anna!" she yapped.

"Hey Amely," Anna replied, still staring at her tablet. " _You can just call me Anna_ ," she mumbled.

"Huh?" asked Amely, cocking her head to the side. It wasn't likely that she was confused, but Anna had gotten so used to working with people who had ears that she'd forgotten her own childhood troubles with hearing soft sounds. Had Remy ever had hearing trouble because of his malformed ears? Probably not; they looked silly but as far as she could tell they were still mostly ear-shaped. Lucky.

"I said that you can just call me Anna; there's no need to be so formal," Anna replied.

Remy glanced over, but if he had anything to say he hid it behind a small smile.

"Adine said that'd be impolite, though. You're not supposed to be, uh, 'familiar' with people who aren't your good friends. Or like, family, but we're not related."

Anna knews this, of course. She'd been taught social rules too, by her mother, then promptly decided to ignore them and do what was most straightforward. "What, I'm not your friend?"

"You're an adult! Adults aren't good friends unless they're like, your mom or something." Amely frowned for a moment, and Remy brushed her with a comforting wing.

Anna frowned too. That feeling was back, though less guilt-flavored and more… affectionate? How could affection make you feel like you were about to cry? Also, as long as she was picking apart her own emotional state, how come she had any affection for this kid at all? They'd only met a day ago. Probably an instinctive response; cling to the first person who pretends to care for you. She'd done the same thing with Alex, before her loyalties shifted. And now everyone was staring at her because she'd been sitting there, trying not to cry, for the better part of a minute.

"Anna, are you okay?" ventured Remy.

She sucked in a breath. "Yeah, yeah, fine. Sorry to zone out like that." She wiped her eyes with her nictitating membranes, and the wetness was gone.

"I can call you Anna, if it makes you feel better," offered Amely. Oh look, the wetness was back. Curse this child and her trickery.

"Please do."

Remy stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "Amely, why don't you get on your homework; strike while the iron is hot?" he suggested, and Amely groaned, unzipping her pack and pulling out a few sheets of paper she had been sent home with. As she moved into the kitchen and hopped up behind the counter, Remy turned back to Anna. "You do know I haven't told her yet, right?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I thought you had, but it doesn't really matter. We're her caretakers, who cares if you're actually related?"

"She would."

Anna shrugged. "Maybe. Hey, I hung up on you earlier because I got a call from… er, we can talk about that later. Point is, what were you so excited about?"

Remy didn't seem as excited by the chance to pontificate as she'd expected from his tone in the call. "Oh, it's nothing important really. I just know Amely's new friend; she was one of the other orphans that Adine and I took care of."

Anna tensed, but her tone was the same. "That seems like a pretty small thing to get so excited about. I mean, it makes sense that they went to the same school, being in the same orphanage."

"Yeah." Remy trailed off, biting his lip. "She was also adopted recently."

"Really? Anyone we know involved in that?"

He shook his head. "Nope, nobody," he said, suspiciously quickly.

Anna didn't care enough to press him. It was probably someone unimportant anyway, like that blue drake, Lopen or something. The fact that the situation was complicated didn't surprise her, though. She seemed to attract drama. "Well, that's good to hear. Maybe Vara can come over sometime."

He glanced away. "Yeah…" They stood there awkwardly for a moment, then he shook his head. "Man, where did the day go? I've really got to finish filing that stuff, but you can tell me about that other call later!" He rushed off into his office, quickly closing the door behind him. He was really an astoundingly awful liar.

Anna shrugged and moved back to the couch, picking up the tablet again. She stared at the riverbed, still frozen in time, then flipped back into the design interface and started messing with her bots' enzymes, attempting to find a more stable configuration. Nothing in the example files stood out to her, though, and she wasn't up to the task of redesigning an enzyme from the primary structure up. Besides, the textbook had specifically told her to use this one. Maybe it was a problem with the binding mechanism? No, that didn't lead anywhere.

She tabbed over to the digital textbook, and a wave of unease swept over her. Remy had stared at these same pages a month ago, and found it "not really too hard". What was he seeing that she was missing?

Maybe she was just losing her touch. That was the story, wasn't it: the prodigy who does everything effortlessly until they finally reach their limit, and they have no idea how to proceed. Hell, in that framework her cancer could be considered a final exam, one she only passed by cheating.

Anna blinked, and set the tablet down, very deliberately. She wasn't getting anywhere with that in her current mindset anyway. But what to do instead? She scanned the room with a predator's eyes, trying to find something that wasn't dreadfully boring. Cleaning was right out-besides the fact that it was tedious, there was a marked absence of anything that was out of order. At least, anything that was out of order enough to irritate her. There was the TV, but she certainly didn't want to watch the same show as yesterday with Amely in the room, and channel-surfing was too passive. At last, her gaze landed on the kitchen counter, where Amely still sat, staring down at the papers spread out there and muttering occasionally.

"Amely, do you want some help with your homework?"

Amely looked over, hopeful, then narrowed her eyes. "No." Anna stood anyway, and walked to the counter, hopping up on the stool next to Amely. "I said I didn't need any help," insisted Amely. Anna examined what she had written down so far.

"Are you sure? Because it doesn't look like you're making very much progress." That was an understatement. Amely had barely gotten anything down at all. "What's the problem?"

Amely looked away from her for a long moment, refusing to acknowledge the question, but at last she broke. "The teacher was telling us how to subtract big numbers today, and I still don't get it. How can I take away this two from this zero?"

Anna resisted the impulse to get mad at Amely's ignorance. If she were an adult, that would have been grounds for a browbeating, but even she had taken a few days to figure out this stuff, back when she was a kid. Only a few days, though; some people seemed to never grasp even this simple stuff, which she didn't get. What on earth did these people even _do_? Oh right, Amely had asked her a question. "Well, you can take away two from zero in general by using a negative number, but since this two is in twenty-five and the zero is in three-hundred and four, you can skip that."

Amely looked down at the paper, then back up at Anna, nonplussed."Uh, how?"

Anna gestured to the three with a claw. "If you take away one from the three, you can add ten to the zero, because the three is actually three-hundred and the zero is zero tens, so you take one hundred and turn it into ten tens." It wasn't the best explanation, but it had been almost two decades since she'd learned this stuff, and her degree wasn't in teaching.

"Oh, that makes sense," Amely's hand twitched into action, crossing out and carrying tens as if she'd been doing it for years. Maybe it was a good explanation, then. Or, more likely, she had just needed a reminder of what the teacher had explained. Anna grinned despite herself; it was hard not to be proud of her success in this matter. Goodness knew Remy's natural kid would never be this smart. Eh, that was uncharitable. There was always the possibility of a freak genetic mutation.

She sat there, satisfied to watch Amely work through the problems for a few minutes. Eventually she grew bored, though, and her stomach grumbled slightly. She realized that she had skipped lunch, with her fervor to keep working on the assignment. It was around three PM now, so a snack wouldn't be totally out of order. While Amely kept working, Anna got up and began rifling through the kitchen cabinets. Remy had stocked them before she showed up; apparently he disliked snack foods. His loss. Her claw closed around a plastic bag and she pulled it out along with a small glass bowl. Amely glanced over hungrily as she poured herself out some tortilla chips, but said nothing. Anna shrugged and began crunching the chips happily.

Remy walked out of his office a quarter-hour later, finally done with the paperwork, and stared for a moment when he saw the two of them sitting together. Anna returned his stare, then put another clawful of chips into her mouth. He walked through the living room, picking up Anna's tablet and putting it on the coffee table, and waited until he was in the kitchen to speak. "Hey Anna, can I talk to you in private?"

He didn't sound upset, but she froze nonetheless, mouth still full of fried wheat. "Whuh?" she mumbled, spilling a few crumbs, before quickly swallowing. The chip pieces cut into her throat on the way down. "Excuse me." she said, hopping back down from the stool and following Remy into a corner that was out of Amely's earshot.

"So I got a call earlier-" Anna tensed. This wasn't how she'd planned for the conversation about Colleen's offer to go. What had she told him about it? "-from the school. Tomorrow's a snow day."

She restrained her sigh of relief. "Really? It didn't seem that snowy this morning." It hadn't actually snowed since she'd gotten here, but she supposed it was about the right time for the snows to start. Especially considering the extent to which the humans had apparently fucked up their planet before the dragons showed up.

"There's a snowstorm scheduled to blow in tonight, and the streets might not be plowed until the afternoon."

"Well, I'm sure Amely will appreciate the day off. Got any plans?"

Remy frowned, gritting his teeth. "That's up to you. I still have to work tomorrow."

"Oh." Well, at least she didn't have to worry about taking Colleen up on her offer. "Hmmm… Maybe we can have some fun in the snow-make snow hydras or something?"

Remy narrowed his eyes. "Don't-don't do that. I don't want either of you to-Just stay inside please." He suddenly sounded scared.

"Geez, alright." Anna supposed he did have an excuse for being afraid of that, but she wasn't going to faint or anything.

The fear on Remy's face left as quickly as it had appeared. "Okay." There was a short silence between them. "So, uh, I can start on dinner now, since you made it last night…" he ventured.

"Oh, you don't need to start right now. I just ate," replied Anna. turning to go back to Amely. Remy sighed, and, after a moment, followed her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes:** So you know how I hoped this chapter would be faster to write? HAHAHAHAHahahaa... yeah. I got a *wee* bit sidetracked on other fics. On the upside, I think this chapter's actually gone a lot better than the last one, especially given the assistance of Panoramic_Vacuum, my erstwhile beta-reader. I also have to thank you people down in the comments section for keeping this fic going. It really does mean a lot to me when someone goes out of their way to tell me their thoughts on my work, even if they just write a few words.

* * *

Anna watched Remy load up the dishwasher, his claws only adding to the clatter of the plastic plates. Most humans used porcelain, but shatterproof plates were probably a wise choice for someone without hands. They were wobbling nearly as much as her stomach was, as she tried to work up the nerve to broach the subject of Colleen's offer. He rinsed the red sauce off of the last plate and gently nestled it in the rack before closing the dishwasher with a resounding _whump_ and turning to her. She started, realizing that she'd been staring at him nervously. "Um… So…" she fumbled, trying to start things off.

"So?" he replied, confused.

"Could we, um, take a minute to talk privately?"

Remy sighed, walking around the island to sit next to her. "I have to go tuck Amely in soon, but we have a minute. What's got you so perturbed?"

She wasn't _that_ nervous. "It's about the call I got earlier; the one I had to hang up on you for. It was from Colleen."

Remy involuntarily raised a brow-ridge. "Doctor Hayes called you? About what?"

"She wants to give me a job, doing genetics research. And by 'wants', I suspect she means 'is going to, whether I like it or not'."

He let out a contemplative hum. "She does tend to be pushy about these things, but her roar is worse than her fire. What's she offering in return?"

"I'm not sure, but she wants to help refine my chimerization technique. That could be worth, well, millions at least, even if it only works for dragons." Anna rubbed her chin with a claw. It wasn't technically lying; she'd done the math herself on the potential for profit with her tech, like everything that had come out of her lab back when it was actually legal. Not much point in an invention nobody would buy, she figured.

Now the other ridge was up, and Remy's jaw seemed to have gone a bit slack. "Millions?"

"Well, I'd probably just be making royalties, but it's still a sizeable quantity of cash."

A muffled shout from Amely's room caught Remy's attention before he could reply. "Oh! Sorry, I've got to go put her to bed. Just-just sit tight!" he said, rushing off. Anna could see the excitement in his gait; with every step he flapped his wings a little, pushing him forwards faster until he reached the door and disappeared through it.

Anna sat there, heart still a little fast, and tapped her claws impatiently. She hadn't pegged Remy as the type to be motivated by material wealth, but she also hadn't pegged Maverick as the type to become a cog in the council's machine, so maybe that wasn't his problem. What did he need with money, though? He had this beautiful house and car and all that. Though, with the population reduction and the loss of electrical power, it was possible that the price of houses and cars was a lot lower than she remembered. Apartments in the city sure weren't any cheaper.

A thought then came to her, like a solicitor at the door during the first meeting with your boyfriend's parents. He was excited about the money, sure, but Remy was _not_ going to like the scheduling conflict. Could he parse the issue rationally? Unlikely, seeing as she couldn't. She needed something to calm their nerves so they could collaborate-or just dull their wits enough that they wouldn't look a gift hippus in the mouth. Did Remy have any wine?

What was she thinking, of course he had wine. The side of the island was latticed to make room for a small wine rack, occupied by a few bottles. Anna stared at them, nonplussed, then took the one with the fanciest label and grabbed the corkscrew from the utensils drawer. A bit of elbow grease later, and she'd poured two glasses of red wine. Admittedly, the corkscrew had done most of the work, clamping onto the top of the bottle and punching a little hole right through the cork as soon as she'd positioned it properly. The wine didn't smell like cleaning fluid, so it was already a step up from the cheap wine she'd had experience with.

She took a glass in each hand and walked over to the couch, setting them out on the coffee table and sitting primly behind one of them. All she had to do now was act like she was meeting with the council and trying not to offend anyone, and there was smooth sailing ahead. She even managed not to touch the wine before Remy was finished putting Amely to bed.

As he finished closing the door and turned to her, he paused, confused. Was he blushing? "What's, er, all this?" he asked, waving a claw at her.

"Well, I wanted to help us relax a little while we talk. There's some pretty heavy hooks to go with the bait Colleen cast." She tapped the place next to her on the couch.

Remy walked over, still furrowing his brow, and hopped up onto the couch next to her, carefully keeping a few inches between them. "The hook is usually the thing that draws you in, not something that drives you off. Or is that what you meant, and you just didn't want me to accidentally knock something over in my excitement?"

"Actually, I was talking about how a hook lodges in your gills and pulls you into a suffocating hellscape where you can be killed and eaten, but I acknowledge the failure of the metaphor. This hook, well… I can't take care of Amely and do this job."

Remy tensed slightly, then took a sip of the wine. He tensed slightly more upon tasting it, though at least that wasn't directly her fault. "That's… to be expected, I guess. Colleen works by her own hours, so we all do too. You'll still be home in the afternoons, though."

"That still leaves us with nobody to take Amely to school, and that's not even accounting for the fact that I'd probably work twelve or more hours a day." She sipped some wine too (it tasted fine to her). Maintaining her composure was stressful work.

"Well, if the pay's good enough I can hire a nanny to handle it, or even just quit my own employment with Colleen."

"I didn't think you could just quit whenever you wanted. Isn't that part of the deal with mercenaries, that you don't get to back out?"

Remy laughed. "Mercenaries are _famously_ loyal, yes. All joking aside, I'm not a mercenary and I'm certainly not indispensable. I couldn't quit because there aren't any other jobs I can do out here, not without hands. Office work is much easier to find when the office blocks are still habitable, after all. But if you can get paid for your research, I'd be able to stop working for a while and still pay the bills." He rubbed his chin with a claw. "Matter of fact, I don't even know if you'd need to stay here. You could find your own nicer apartment and just send me child support, like the courts originally wanted."

Anna blinked. He seemed to expect her to like that idea, but she… _didn't_? Quite apart from her own living conditions, she actually really liked staying here with Amely and Remy. It beat sitting around in an apartment with nothing but a tablet to talk to. She couldn't admit that to _him_ , though. "I… well, that might not work out…"

He cocked his head. "Why not?"

She crossed her arms, making a noncommittal sound. "I kinda like living here, is all."

"Really?" Remy was incredulous.

"It's nice to have someone to talk to who I don't owe money and who isn't a customer."

Remy stretched out on the couch, getting a little more comfortable now that the topic had drifted. "What happened to 'get out of my lab, Remy, I'm trying to work'?"

She frowned at him. "Avoiding death twice in one week tends to give you a new perspective on things. Plus, it's a lot harder to get invested in people than in the work that will prevent your death, but since that's no longer a concern…" She could feel his eyes on the scar on her neck, and she scratched it self-consciously.

"If I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd almost say you liked us."

She sighed. "I _do_ like you two, Remy. Is that what you were looking for, your deep truth?"

"Er-"

"I bet you think that's a lie, or just me trying to pretend. How could I ever be friends with you, after what we've been through? How could you, for that matter?" A cold certainty settled over her as she realized that Remy probably _didn't_ like her, despite appearances. It was far more likely that he hated her guts and was just pretending to keep things civil.

He gaped at her. "I had no idea you felt so strongly about this."

"I can't explain it, but I also don't have any reason to lie to you about it. Creator knows I don't have anything material to gain by staying here." She slammed down the rest of her wine, hoping that the slight warmth of the alcohol would negate the chill that was still nestled deep inside her.

"Well… I'm glad you like us, I guess? It doesn't really change matters, other than meaning I can't use the guest bedroom for actual guests." He took another careful sip of his wine, then redirected the conversation. "I'll put in my two weeks' notice as soon as we know how much you're getting paid."

Her reply stuck in her throat. He seemed so… nonchalant about it, as if turning your whole life upside down for a job offer was something you did every day. She'd been panicking over it all afternoon, and she never panicked over _anything!_ "Really?"

"Why not? It seems like the straightforward solution to me. Besides, I've got funds saved up in case things fall through."

There was a moment of doubt in her mind, one she'd had before, but she quelled it. The worst thing that could happen is that they'd stay right where they were, and that wasn't too bad an outcome. "Alright, it's settled then." She trailed off, stomach still unsettled. "And, um… thank you for being so untroubled." She didn't mention her own agonizing over the phone call.

"I aim to please. Hey, you want to watch some TV?" Remy asked, picking up the remote.

"As long as everyone involved keeps their clothes on, sure." He nodded, flicking to a cable channel, and their conversation devolved into a pleasant chatter. Anna got a little more comfortable against the couch as they talked, but even after the show had ended and Remy had turned in for the night, she couldn't shake that feeling. For the first time in her life, she wasn't happy being hated.

* * *

"Hey Anna, it's time to wake up." Amely said, pushing the bedroom door open without knocking.

Anna was, as usual, curled up on the mattress with her head down near her feet, so she couldn't see how her progeny was acting, but if she had to guess she'd say the girl was quite excited about her snow day. That made one of them. "Mhmrmmm, go bother Remy…" Anna mumbled, pulling her head in a little closer.

"Remy had to leave early, so it's just us." Amely sounded even happier about that.

A pang of affection gripped Anna, just for a moment, but then it was replaced by mild annoyance. "What?" she asked sharply, raising her head from the bed and blinking blearily. The door was still ajar, and she could see that the TV was on in the living room. At least nothing appeared to be on fire, and Amely wasn't visibly injured.

"He left a few minutes ago." Amely sounded abashed, and crept towards the door slightly as Anna hauled herself out of bed.

She gave Amely a confused look, then sighed. "Creator knows why he didn't decide to wake me up before leaving," she grumbled, moving past Amely and into the living room, which was still in good order. "At least you didn't set the place alight. That's worth something."

Amely sidled up next to Anna and gave her a curious look, like she was afraid she'd done something wrong, but said nothing.

Anna suddenly felt the tension in the air. "Sorry, I get snappy when I'm tired. Or well-rested, for that matter." They both chuckled, though Amely did so with a bit of confusion. Anna kept moving, from the living room to the kitchen. Her stomach rumbled. "Did you eat breakfast?"

"Remy made me some cereal before he left."

She actually struggled to imagine the drake doing something so… mundane. When she was around, Remy always seemed to be going out of his way for Amely. "That's good." She grabbed a banana from the basket of fruit on the counter and began to peel it as she paced.

"So, uh, what should we do today?" asked Amely, following Anna into the kitchen.

Anna took a bite of the banana and mulled it over. They could stay inside, certainly, and just waste these few hours on movies or something. There were probably attractions in town, but she didn't have a car or any desire to see what passed for entertainment outside the wall. That said, there was one advantage to being outside of the city proper… "How do you feel about an outdoor activity? Like a hike."

Amely looked out the window over the sink. A thin dusting of snow had settled over the unkempt estates around them, and the glass was slightly foggy with condensation."It's kinda cold outside for a hike, though."

"Well, it isn't really a hike, it's a hunt. There'll be plenty of running to keep our blood flowing."

"A hunt? For what?"

"Anything. I don't know what we'll find exactly, but there's like, rabbits and such living in the ruined areas." Anna didn't actually know this for sure, but spending time 'outside of the social norm' had taught her a few things about how animals congregated. A place like the ruins would be great shelter for little critters, who hadn't yet learned that some predators had brains, and hands too. She'd checked the maps just to be sure, and there was a ruined location not at all far from here.

It took Amely a moment to process the implications of Anna's statement. "I don't want to kill any rabbits, and they're too cute to eat!" Amely insisted, crossing her arms.

This was an unexpected response, and Anna needed a moment to turn it over. Certainly, most dragons weren't as bloodthirsty as she was, but from what she knew that was something you grew _into_ , not _out of_. What were they teaching Amely at that human school? Well, she knew more than most about hunting, and that was certainly useful here. "Hunting the rabbits actually helps them to survive in the future."

"How does that work?" asked Amely, incredulous.

"Well, if we don't cull the rabbit population, they'll breed out of control until they've eaten all the available food, then they'll starve. That's the job of predators, to keep everything in line. Not to mention that, by killing off the weakest and dumbest rabbits, we improve the odds that the next generation will be smarter and better adapted for survival."

Amely hummed, trying to wrap her head around that logic. "That… sort of makes sense. But I still don't want to hurt them!"

Augh, kids. The only creatures in the world more stubborn than bureaucrats. "Well, I still want to give you a chance to try it. We can do catch-and-release instead. Just means I have to pack lunch." At that, Amely stuck out her tongue and Anna chuckled. Eager to get started, she walked over to the fridge and grabbed a loaf of bread, then paused and looked back to Amely. "What kind of sandwich do you want? We have deli meats or peanut butter and jelly."

"PB and J," replied Amely, her attention returning to the TV as she tried to catch a few more minutes of the show she was watching.

"Alright." Anna gathered the needed supplies and set to work, ending up with two slightly sloppy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which in turn went into separate paper bags, along with an apple each and a bottle of water that they could share. She sealed the first bag, then paused and grabbed something else from under the counter; a small self-heating packet of cocoa which went into the second bag along with a thermos which she filled most of the way with tap water. That would be a nice surprise for Amely, or at least a nice way for Anna to warm up after playing in the snow. She wasn't too proud to admit that she planned on playing. Lions played with their prey, after all, and nobody thought that they were childish.

* * *

They crunched out the door a moment later, after Amely was bundled up and Anna had fished a pair of boots and a vest out of Remy's coat closet. The vest had wing-holes in the back, but it would keep her core warm well enough. Remy owned a lot of winter clothes, she realized, and he'd stocked up on ones that fit Amely too.

Amely yipped a little as the first breaths of cold air touched her cheek. "Is this your first time out in the snow?" Anna asked, as they walked down the front steps. Her breath made little clouds in the air in front of her, shaped into thin misty jets by her snout.

"I didn't think it'd be so cold," Amely replied. "The human kids made it sound really nice to play in."

Anna smiled. "Humans are weird like that, yeah. It's refreshing, though, isn't it?"

"I guess." Amely shivered a little.

"You know the best way to warm up? Exercise." Anna pointed ahead. "Follow me!" she encouraged, then took off. Remy and Adine might have been able to fly, but on the ground runners like her were queens of speed. Time for Amely to learn a bit of her species' 'heritage'.

Her feet pounded in the snow, sending up a powdery wake behind her. Despite her speed, her eyes stayed focused, and she carefully inspected the road sign ahead to make sure she had the right turn. Behind her, she could hear Amely running along, though the girl huffed and puffed a bit more than she did. She came to a halt at the intersection, and Amely caught up a moment later, panting and bending down to catch her breath. "Pretty good, for a first try."

"No fair, your legs are longer! I can beat any of the kids in my class in a race," Amely replied, pride seeping through her exhaustion.

Anna was just glad she'd kept her physique, at least a little bit. A few more months living like she had been, and Amely might have actually beaten her. "And I can beat any of their parents, I'll bet. There are some perks to being a runner, no matter what they tell you."

"Nobody really tells me it's bad to be a runner," Amely replied, confused. They turned the corner and proceeded down the next street at a more leisurely pace, ducking down midway to get past another gate and into a more overgrown area. "Most of my classmates thought it was really cool to have a 'real live dinosaur' in their class."

Anna was about to respond when she froze, and held up a claw to silence Amely. Ahead of them, a few mouflon-ish animals-sheep, were they?-were crossing the road. The sight made her a bit nervous-probably because these were a lot bigger than the rabbits she'd planned to catch. She'd caught mouflons without killing them before, though. " _Watch this,_ " she said, then charged.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes:** zzzZZzzzz...

hmrgh, what? Oh yeah, I'm a writer or something. Have some fic. Thanks as always to Panoramic_Vacuum for moral and editorial support.

* * *

In that moment, Anna was five years younger, catching a mouflon for the first time. It wasn't her first hunt, not by a long shot, but her parents had decided to spoil her since she'd done so well on her exams. Hadn't stopped them from kicking her out two weeks later, when Dad got that promotion. Apparently, a big game hunt-and a mouflon was absolutely big game when all you had were claws, teeth, and speed-was no substitute for emotional closeness.

Any parallels between her and her parents were forgotten as she collided with the beast, slamming into its side with enough force to send it stumbling sideways. It didn't look very threatening without horns, she thought, before it bucked her grip, returning the charge in the form of a blow to the head. She blinked the stars out of her eyes and leapt up onto it, using her fore and hind-claws to dig in and hold on. This was the perfect disemboweling grip, but she held off, still aware of Amely's attention. The hot blood on her hands was more than enough gore for a novice.

Instead, she darted in with her neck, wrapping her teeth around the sheep's throat and pressing just hard enough to restrict breathing. This was the hardest part, matching her strength against that of the beast for the agonizing moments it took before it surrendered. Her neck ached, first, then it burned with the effort of holding them both together. It was a blessed relief when the beast collapsed, sighing softly as it hit the snow. She pried herself out of and off of it, checking to make sure it was intact. Blood oozed from the claw-wounds in its back and belly, but they hadn't gone deep enough to hit anything important.

The rest of the herd had fled, judging by the trampled snow. Anna took a few deep breaths, feeling the adrenaline drain out of her and licking the blood from her front claws. As always, the thrill of the hunt was electric in her veins."Pretty impressive, right?"

Amely ran towards Anna, only stopping once when the sheep twitched a little in its torpor. "Is it gonna be okay?" She knelt down next to it, looking over its body. For what, neither of them were sure. Anna knew enough about anatomy to know Amely was looking in the wrong places.

"It'll be fine, after a bit of rest."

"How can you tell?"

"Most people would call it hunters' intuition, but there are a few key signs to look for." Anna knelt down next to Amely, resting most of her weight on her tail and pubic bone. "I know the spots I hit wouldn't kill a mouflon, but since they're a bit bigger we have other ways of checking," she said, pointing out each of the four gashes with a reddened claw. "First of all, of course, it's still breathing steadily, which is always a good sign. Also, there's only a little blood flowing out, and that's from veins."

"How can you tell that?" asked Amely, curiously examining the wounds. She didn't appear too repulsed by the blood, though the sheep's twitching legs did seem to spook her every so often. Anna was glad of that-she'd picked the right genes to pass along, apparently.

"See how the blood is dark red? If the cuts had hit an artery, it'd be a lot brighter. Also probably coming out with a lot more pressure."

"Eww." Amely stuck out her tongue, and Anna chuckled.

"Nobody said hunting was clean, but it is rewarding. Especially when you eat your kills," she said, hopeful.

"I still prefer sandwiches."

Anna sighed. "Well, it's not the best idea to leave this here, but I haven't heard any wolves around here so the sheep will probably make it out fine." She usually didn't have to consider such things-dragons had outcompeted most other carnivores in Laurasia a long time before she was born. "Let's keep moving. Keep an eye out for something smaller."

Amely hesitated, but Anna was already off and jogging, with a newfound spring in her step. She'd really needed that.

* * *

In the next three hours, they saw three abandoned skyscrapers, fifteen overgrown security drones, and uncounted husks of cars, houses, and businesses wreathed in leafless vines. They did not, however, see any rabbits or other small animals that Amely could hunt. The sun was high in the sky now, and both of them had stripped off their outermost layers to avoid overheating as the snow turned to slush in the streets. Now they were poking through an unkempt public park, looking for anything with fur. A chipmunk would be fine at this point.

"Ugh, this is going nowhere. Let's break for lunch and head back." Remy would be back by four anyway. She definitely didn't want him upset when they didn't return. Anna looked for a place to sit and found Amely already perched on a bench. "Guess you're ahead of me on that one."

"Yeah," said Amely. She'd sat down a few times while Anna poked through ruins on the way out here.

Anna edged in next to her on the bench, flipping her backpack around and opening it up. "Want to do anything in the snow before it all melts? This might be your only chance for a while-it doesn't snow this much out here, usually."

"Mmmh." Amely grunted noncommittally, taking the sandwich that Anna handed her.

"Or we can just sit here and appreciate the scenery. I guess." Anna took a bite of her own sandwich, not wanting to admit that she wasn't sure what to do in the snow either. The snow in their old town was too thin for anything but snow hydras, and Remy had specifically asked her not to do that. Well, Remy had asked her not to do any kind of snow activity, and while hunting wasn't technically a snow activity she wasn't sure he'd see it that way. She grew a little nervous as she worked through the sandwich, remembering how she'd felt last night. It probably wasn't the best idea to give him more reasons to mistrust her.

Amely gasped and poked her lightly with an elbow, bringing her attention away from the clouds and her relationship. A chipmunk was standing opposite them on the path, quite unaware that it was being watched by an apex predator from another era of history, and her six-year old daughter. Anna tapped a claw to her mouth, then indicated that Amely should get into position. They'd discussed a few hand signals on the way up, mostly because Anna had gotten very bored and talking to Amely about her _work_ would be… risky.

Silently, she tore off a bit of her sandwich and tossed it onto the trail. The chipmunk sniffed it, then grabbed the hunk of crust in its little paws and started nibbling away. She could hear Amely rustling around in the bushes, and her pulse quickened. The irritation of waiting around for another to strike was why she preferred to hunt alone.

In a rush of sound and movement, Amely burst out of the bushes and grabbed the chipmunk in her teeth, eliciting a loud squeal from the poor rodent. She turned to Anna, the corners of her mouth upturned even as the chipmunk wriggled, its front half stuck fast but the hindquarters free to flop about. "Mmmph-mm!" Amely mumbled, excited.

Anna laughed. "Pretty impressive! Now, uh, spit the poor thing out before one of you draws blood."

Amely turned her head as she released the chipmunk, tossing it ten or so feet into the grass, where it rolled twice then lay stunned for a moment. She looked very relieved when it got up and ran off, still squeaking madly. "Sorry!" she shouted after it, then looked to Anna. "What's so funny?"

"Usually you use your claws to get small prey, not your mouth. Especially if you don't intend to kill," Anna advised, as they sat back down on the bench. Amely stuck out her tongue, scraping it on her teeth to try and get some of the fur out of her mouth.

"I was doing my best!"

"Probably following your instincts, yeah. Did you feel the urge to bite down?"

She frowned, and looked down at her claws. "Yeah, a little bit." Her tone was suddenly more abashed than defensive.

"Don't be so glum, it's perfectly normal. Humans experience it too, from what I hear, though of course theirs is a lot milder since they got their brains from social apes instead of solitary hunters." Anna stuffed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth, wishing she'd made one with meat for herself, and got back to looking through the backpack. Pulling out the cocoa mix, she realized that the heating pack was soaked through already. It was still a little warm-must have been inundated when she first dropped the bag in the snow. How was she going to heat it now?

Well, there was always the direct option. Amely was still finishing her sandwich, so she took the time to mix the powder and water inside a metal water bottle she'd found in the back of Remy's cabinets. She'd brought it along for her own water supply, since they were short on thermoses, but now it could serve an alternate purpose. She set it down in front of them in the snow, making sure to pop off the plastic lid and the belt clip underneath it. "Have you ever breathed your fire before?"

"No?" replied Amely, confused. "I only ever heard that we definitely were never to do it inside the school or orphanage. Miss Adine said it was gross anyway."

Anna did take a little perverse joy in hearing Adine get less familiarity than her, for once."You know what's not gross, though? Hot cocoa."

"That's… true?"

She pointed to the bottle in front of them. "Problem is, this cocoa is cold. Let's change that."

"Okay." Amely seemed to be getting a little tired of learning dragon things. Maybe Anna should have talked about something else on the way back.

"So, the first step in breathing fire is to find your fireglands. Do you know where those are?" Amely shook her head. "Well, try swallowing and holding it. Feel the muscle that's contracting? The fireglands are right under there-careful! If you tense them now, you'll just throw up fire all over the place, which is exponentially worse than throwing up normally because it's fire."

Amely's throat twitched a bit, but nothing came from her mouth yet, so they were off to a good start.

"Now, shape your lips into an O, like you were whistling, and press your tongue against the bottom of your mouth. That way, you get a nice thin stream of fire instead of a big spray. Plus you don't burn your tongue."

Anna gave Amely a moment to prepare, then continued.

"Now, take aim. It's a skill that takes practice, but for now just line up the top of the bottle between your nostrils. At this range it's pretty hard to miss totally."

Amely stared hard at the bottle, as if willing it to burst into flames of its own accord.

"Now, on my signal, clench down hard. Three, two, one-" She cut herself off with a burst of flame. Like always, it flowed up her throat, hotter and more acrid than bile, before spewing from the gap she'd left for it and igniting when it hit the air. Amely did much the same, though her stream was spottier, and little drips of flame fell from the sides of her mouth.

The bottle was quickly engulfed in fire, and as suddenly as Anna had started breathing flame she stopped, releasing the tension on her glands and letting the remaining flame spew from her mouth in a wide burst. Instead of cutting her's off, Amely just ran out of steam, her stream no longer strong enough to reach the bottle by the time Anna stopped. She finally opened her mouth and coughed, sending out a few flaming drops which Anna twitched to avoid.

When the fire coating it had burned away, the bottle still glowed slightly, and she waited until it cooled to pick it up, careful to use her claws only when taking the boiling vessel. Thin wisps of chocolatey steam curled up from the mouth of the bottle, especially striking when compared to the acrid smell of firebreath. She wrapped the flask in the bag that the cocoa had come in, insulating it enough that she could get a proper grip and pour the cocoa back into the thermos. Noticing Amely's impatient expression, she handed her the thermos. "Be my guest."

Amely sniffed the flask, breathing in the sweet smell, then took a sip. "Ow!" she yelped, recoiling at the near-boiling heat of the liquid.

Anna recoiled too, her heart quickening just a bit at her child's pain. She would have grinned if it were Remy who'd singed his tongue, but this was different. Apparently. "Oh sh-oh no!" she said, "I didn't even think of that! You're okay, right?"

"I juth burned my tongue," Amely replied, a little exasperated.

She felt unusually relieved at that. "It's my mistake-I didn't think that dragonfire would be so much hotter than the heating pack."

"It'th okay."

"I can't believe I was so foolish, augh! What if you'd dropped it on yourself? Heck, what if you'd gotten bitten by that chipmunk and had to get a rabies shot!" Suddenly, her immense intellect was working against her, spinning all sorts of scenarios for things to go wrong. Was she going paranoid again?

"It's okay!" Amely shouted, her lisp already fading. "I've burned my tongue before, I'm not a baby."

Anna took a deep breath. "Sorry, I just… don't tell your dad about this." She'd gained just a glimmer of insight as to why Remy had been so loath to let them go adventuring in the first place.

"What, burning my tongue?"

"This hunt." She took the thermos back from Amely and screwed the lid on, then hefted the backpack. "Come on, let's go."

"Already? Why?" Amely whined.

"It's dangerous out here, according to Remy. I don't want you to get hurt." Anna spoke like her words were gospel, but she wouldn't have believed them herself yesterday. At least, not from any perspective other than the idea of taking care of something you found entertaining. "Also I'm pretty sure this legally counts as child endangerment." She started walking back the way they'd came.

Amely barely matched Anna's pace. "But nothing bad happened. I was never even in any danger."

"That might be true, but we should still head home." Anna turned left instead of right as they left the park, taking a quicker route back. "We can stop at the halfway point, though. The cocoa should be cool enough to drink by then."

"Okay, just tell me when we're there!" said Amely, speeding up a bit. Anna did crack a smile at that.

* * *

They stopped to drink the cocoa on the patio of a long-abandoned delicatessen. The glass in the windows was long since broken, and the chairs and tables had started to rust through their anodized coatings, but Anna still marveled at the scale of the place. This was one of many restaurants on this stretch of road, judging by the proliferation of outdoor seating, and yet this street itself was just a minor thoroughfare on the outskirts of a single city. Back in her time, this would have been the main street of a good-sized city. She could empathize a little with the humans Remy sold his findings to-how grand their people must have been, before the fall.

"Do they teach anything about human history at your school?" Anna asked, once she'd mused her way through most of a serving of cocoa.

"Of course they do," said Amely, confused at the line of reasoning. "It's a human school so they teach human history. If a human went to a dragon school they'd learn dragon history." She sounded confident in this claim despite the lack of any dragon schools, at least that Anna knew of.

Anna wanted to ask Amely about the humans, but thought better of it. If the schools here were anything like the ones in her time, they didn't teach anything interesting until the tenth grade. "Huh. Is it interesting to you? Seems hard to relate to."

"It's less boring than dragon history. Humans were always doing cool stuff, apparently. Did you know they didn't even start out on this continent, so they all had to come over in big wooden boats?" Amely sounded astounded, and admittedly it did sound quite outlandish when put that way.

Anna feigned ignorance. "Really? Who's idea was that?" Of course, she knew all about the colonial era, though she suspected that some of it was exaggerated. Who would ever fund an explorer who couldn't properly calculate the circumference of the Earth?

"Apparently they did it to get more resources so the king could get rich. Actually that's the reason they did most of the things they did. Like, I could put 'they did it to get rich' for every answer on a quiz and get half of them right." Amely giggled, and slurped down the rest of her cocoa.

"I wouldn't advise that. After all, they did save us from that meteor, and I don't see anyone getting rich off of that," said Anna, before gulping down her own drink.

Amely shrugged, picking up her coat and standing to leave. "Maybe."

Gathering her own things, Anna got up, and in a few moments they were off again, weaving between the abandoned cars. She still couldn't see the end of this commercial strip-it just went off into the distance.

* * *

There was no car in the driveway when they got home, and Anna sighed in relief. Remy wasn't back yet. Undoing the deadbolt and the lock, they slipped through the door, the dim entryway a shocking change after noonday sun and snow. She fumbled and finally found the light switch, which made taking off their gear much easier, then went into the kitchen It was well lit by the living room's broad north-facing window. She left the backpack by the island before washing her hands; blood didn't disgust her, but it would stain her claws.

Not bothering to dry off, she headed back into the mudroom to make sure Amely was getting on okay. Anna was startled to see that Amely was already gone, until she checked and saw her plopped down on the couch again, trying to find the remote. "Take off your coat and stay awhile," Anna chided. She'd heard that one from her shift manager more than a few times, until she'd decided to just pawn the offending coat entirely.

Once Amely fully disrobed, Anna was finally able to relax. Remy wouldn't be home for… how long? She grabbed her tablet to check the time. Strange… it was almost five PM already. They'd been gone for longer than she thought-or perhaps she'd slept in later. Either way, he should have been home fifteen minutes ago, unless one of his meetings had gone longer than scheduled. That was probably it, she decided. Besides, she didn't need him right now, so why worry about it? She sat on the couch, pulling a blanket over herself to get the chill out of her toes, and set to reading the news.

Thirty minutes later, there was still no sign of Remy. Not even a text message. Anna was starting to worry that this would really cut into her free time tonight, if he wasn't around to share the load. Closing her newsreader, she flipped over to her messaging app and tapped out a quick **where are you?** to Remy. After a moment of waiting for a reply, she set down the tablet and turned to Amely. "It's almost dinner time. Are you hungry?"

"Maybe a little."

"Okay." Anna pushed the blanket off of herself and took herself and the tablet over to the kitchen. Nothing fancy tonight; she didn't have to prove anything, just feed the two of them. Macaroni and cheese would suffice. Remy had bought the expensive kind, after all.

The pot was at a rolling boil when her tablet finally lit up again. She started and nearly dropped the whole box of pasta into the water. Taking a deep breath, she poured the rest of the pasta in and only then turned to her tablet. Remy had sent one short message and a phone number...for some guy named Will?

 **Sorry, had to head out on a job.(unamused face emoji) Might not be back for a day or three.**

 **(finger pointing down emoji)Call Kaiser if you need some help.(finger pointing down emoji)**

The empty box hit the opposite wall with a loud _thack_. On the bright side, he definitely wouldn't figure out that they'd been gone all morning.


End file.
